Video: Costa Rican artist takes contemporary art to new heights — literally

Tropical colors, geometric shapes and floor-to-ceiling heights are the three main characteristics that distinguishes Federico Herrero’s thought-provoking artwork. The Costa Rican-born artist is globally famous for his artwork but he only held his first U.S. showing recently, in February 2012, at Philadelphia’s Bridgette Mayer Gallery.

As an art critic from the Philadelphia Weekly reported, “He has painted (murals) them on the walls of fishing huts in Basel, Switzerland, and on the walls of rooftop structures in Athens, Greece. And when he painted one at the Venice Biennale in 2001 — the premiere survey of international art — the judges gave him the Golden Lion Award for Best Young Artist.

Herrero approaches his work differently than most artists: “My main concern is in painting actually, not even in color but in painting.” Still calling Costa Rica home, Herrero mixes the tradition of mural painting with a variety of inspriational sources for him, such as street signs, graffiti, tropical plants, multicoloured houses in rural areas and suburbs, advertisements, old signs, and non-language-based shapes, symbols and icons from the cityscape.

He is considered one of the artists to watch in today’s contemporary art scene.