Gina Herrera
A Rhythmic Charmer

Media: Assorted Found Materials
Size: 10" x 8" x .0”
$1500

Artist Statement:
I have always felt a strong affinity for nature. Growing up in Chicago, I found the most beauty in the trees, the singing birds, the sky above. As a visual learner with a multicultural heritage, I have been influenced by my father’s Tesuque culture and my mother’s Costa Rican heritage. While cultural art fascinates me, experiencing beauty of great European art collections while stationed in Germany early in my military career inspired my professional pursuit of art.

While serving in Iraq, amid the devastation of combat, I was moved by seeing miles of mountainous trash heaps. I viscerally experienced the global extent of the systematic destruction of the planet, exploitative, unsustainable, and perhaps worst, careless, unconscious, accidental. This led me to question my own practices, hoping to lessen my environmental impact. I began to build three-dimensional forms out of discarded and natural objects. I am engaged in an aesthetic and spiritual ritual to channel and honor Mother Earth, to seek connection and communion with a power greater than myself.

Everywhere I go, I gather materials, finding inspiration in my surroundings. Like a scavenger, I play an interventional role in removing garbage from the landscape, preventing it from doing further damage. I am also drawn to natural materials and organic forms -- branches, rocks, cocoons, nests. My process is meditative and intuitive – each step revealing a new aspect. Figures emerge, in gravity defying postures on the brink of movement, alive with possibility. Their haunting spiritual presence reminds us they have not gone back to the earth, but asks us to question our connection with our world and the choices we make in our daily existence. My greatest objective is to awaken individual and societal consciousness; to examine and heal our relationship with Mother Earth.

These recent works incorporate paper making techniques into my assemblages. I’m inspired by the way that a clear form, or a recognizable object emerges from the formless primordial soup of the sludge of consumer culture that mirrors how a thought bubbles into awareness, how mindfulness begins to take shape.

Biography

Chicago native Gina Herrera holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and an MFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She currently teaches art at Arvin High School and Bakersfield College. A United States Army Major and veteran of multiple deployments, she retired from the United States Military after almost 25 years. While serving in Iraq, miles of mountainous trash heaps amidst the devastation of combat galvanized a life-long love of nature into an activist’s calling. Her art practice evolved to consciously channel Mother Earth in a spiritual and aesthetic ritual drawing from her Tesuque Pueblo and Costa Rican heritage.

https://www.ginaherrera.com/