Roxana Herz

Artist Statement

Biography

Testimonials

Something strange happens when we look at Roxana Herz's paintings,

Or at least that’s how it is for me: I look, and when I look away and then look again, I have the strange sensation that something that was there on the surface of the painting is now gone, and conversely, something that wasn’t there suddenly appears, as if something had shifted out of place, as if something had slipped off the edges of the canvas and slipped back in, camouflaged as something else. That sensation—perhaps brought on by the accumulation of brushstrokes and colors, by the folds and creases of the painting itself, absorbed in the urgency of capturing something before everything dissolves into an unpredictable magma—that sensation may be what the artist manages to convey to the viewer, who, in their eagerness to grasp some form, is always left empty-handed. And this is no small thing, for it is thus that the gaze is compelled to return again and again to the painting, as if it were meant to finish painting with its eyes what, for the artist, are always the traces and strokes of what she cannot reach.

- Eduardo Médici - Argentine Visual Artist - (2011)

ROXANA HERZ, an expressive world of dreams and fantasies, where questions take center stage

Stairs, faces, spaces, abstraction, asymmetrical forms, chromatic overlays, splashes of color, and different realities define the pictorial work of Roxana Herz, an artist who explores the inner workings of the subconscious, is interested in dreamlike imagery and the automatic descriptive method, and captures moments of wakefulness, sleep, and awakening. Objects, beings, faces, eyes, and allegories that transport us to other realms—seeming to float in space—seek evidence of their respective worlds, employing suggestive subtlety to explore the possibility of going beyond the familiar appearance of external reality that we are accustomed to fostering and believing in. In her work, there is an intersection of realities, environments, media, and spaces, which she marks with color, employing more intense tones, gradients, intermediate shades, overlays, and transparencies. She seeks to connect different worlds within an invented space, which she uses to link the various energetic environments that exist. Hence, her faces are allegories, but also characters from her dreams. Meanwhile, the staircases and asymmetrical forms serve as doors that open new paths for us toward other realities that are present—realities that intersect and combine with the space-time continuum.

- Joan Lluís Montané - From the International Association of Art Critics - (2006)

Roxana Herz’s work takes shape through a sort of playful battle, in which she explores the interaction between chaotic randomness that gives way to order and, at times, the everyday: an order that branches out into multiple labyrinthine paths.

Images that enigmatically evoke both internal and external landscapes. The brushstrokes intertwine, constructing complex spaces with depth: patterns, undulating horizontal lines, centers of force, connections, organic curves, and highly rational structures—graphic elements that evoke personal experiences and the textures of nature.

- Juan Doffo - Visual Artist - (2005)

Neither originality nor artistic expression—that is, the essence of a painting—are absent from Roxana Herz’s work.

Starting in 1999, the year he joined my studio, a very particular relationship with painting was evident (and remains so): an isolation from the outside world, an inward gaze that would later bear fruit. […] And from that letting herself be carried away down unexpected paths—to the depths of infinity to find the new, as Baudelaire said—from that spell of shapes and colors, she gradually discovered, with ever-greater technical mastery, a world of images: snails eroticized by time, moons and suns in twilight, angels, and primitive landscapes of the coming century. With this exhibition, Roxana Herz has ushered in an era of self-discovery.

- Victor Chab - Painter - (2003)

Roxana Herz is a visual artist born in Buenos Aires.

Her work demonstrates, on the one hand, the breadth with which she chooses her subjects and, on the other, the most refined formal elegance, based on very subtle linework that avoids any dissonance, and on a vivid, pulsating tonal range that never strays into out-of-place tonal resonances and remains in perfect harmony when the painting is viewed as a whole. At times, her works evoke the tender poetry of Paul Klee, while at others they stand out for the uncompromising originality of their execution, as Roxana Herz knows how to imbue them, in a very special way, with the fullness of the joy of living.

- César Magrini - Argentine art critic - (1997)

Contact

If you would like to learn more about my work, receive information about upcoming exhibitions, or are interested in acquiring artwork, please do not hesitate to contact me.