Federico Herrero
The painting Landscape, Canal Grande by Federico Herrero (b. 1978, Costa Rica) was inspired by his stay in Venice in 2006. A conglomerate of round, coloured patches of various sizes, interwoven and superimposed, forms its surface. A few vaguely figurative allusions may be discerned, such as the green background in the upper part of the painting, which could suggest the horizon. But the spaces Herrero’s paintings represent are mental ones; they are, he says, “landscapes of thoughts from the day that has passed”. The classical form of a painting exhibited in a museum are only a minor – and tamed – part of Herrero’s work, which includes numerous interventions in public spaces. Breaking ironically and subversively with the seriousness of a painting exhibited in its usual context, the artist adds scribbled caricatures and traces of graffiti that call to mind vandalism. Working intuitively rather than analytically, he also claims urban space, painting his “landscapes” outside common artistic boundaries, sometimes on enormous surfaces such as walls, edges or corners.