Federico Herrero (born 1978 in Costa Rica) is one of Latin America's most eminent contemporary artists. In 2001, at the age of only twenty, he won the award for best young artist (today's Silver Lion) at the Venice Biennale curated by Harald Szeemann. His home town of San Jose is an important point of reference for him and serves as a kind of laboratory for his explorations of the world. Despite being firmly anchored in the international art scene, he still lives and works in his native environment. Herrero paints abstract and colourful paintings exclusively of landscapes. He sometimes uses canvasses in extremely large formats, but also creates works in the public sphere. Whether painting high-rise facades in Sao Paulo, bridge piers in Columbia or fishermen's huts in Basel, he always engages in a productive dialogue with architecture. His paintings are not meant to be elitist but part of everyday life. He aims to get involved, often selecting deprived areas and inviting local young people to take part in his work. His art is not designed to change society, but to provide opportunities for critical perception.
