Federio Herrero Retrato, 2015 Mixed media on canvas Herrero’s approach to painting touches on Latin America’s conceptual, muralist, and geometric abstraction traditions and yet stands outside them. The artist goes beyond the limit of the traditional notions of painting. Not only for the way he handles the physical margins of the canvas, but also for how his work operates in and with space. Herrero’s imagery comprises chromatic patches of color, cartoon-esque figures, the lack of painting and disembodied eyes. The use of different mediums such as oil paint, acrylic, marker, pen and spray paint within the same picture dissolves traditional technique hierarchies and reflects the painting process itself. Risk and improvisation are crucial to Herrero’s practice. His work can be seen as a study of liminal spaces—gaps between figure and background, canvas and wall, private and public, and between work and viewer.
