Even though José Herrera’s sculptures are unfairly associated with the precepts of Generation 70 and its search for novel, ground-breaking artistic expression during the years of the Transition to democracy in Spain, they are highly personal and are  difficult to fit into any trend.

Using memory, space, solitude, fragility and silence, much of Herrera’s oeuvre seeks to construct interior landscapes where reality is considered to be seriously threatened. His works, including those that he produces in paper pulp, wood, gold leaf, pigments, and such everyday items as pillows, seats and tables, appeal directly to emotion, poetry and intuition. Along with his bulky, spatial and bulky works, which exemplify his attachment to natural light and emptiness, Herrera’s oeuvre is noted for its large watercolours and small works on paper where he addresses themes linked to his feelings and whatever concerns or preoccupies him

The three watercolours from the early 1990s in this collection are an example of his research into space and the mystery of emptiness from an emotional perspective. They are works in which he draws deeply on colour, an element that is widely used in his sculpture, to achieve silent intensities that represent a state of mind rather than something identifiable.

That same love of colour can be seen in the painted wood sculpture. It is a sort of room that the artist invites you to enter through small doors, even though it is completely occupied by that mysterious silence that seems to surround the solitude of the person living there.

Frederic Montornés