Fitz Herrera

Fitz Herrera, a dedicated abstract artist was born in Caloocan, raised in Nueva Vizcaya until high school, and relocated to Manila for his college education.

Growing up exposed to partly rural and then city life provided a good contrast which nurtured his creativity. The immersive and disparate distinct environments and their textures mixed with his experiences profoundly shaped his thinking and aesthetic character; the province being quiet and then later Caloocan being a more squalid replete with the harsh realities of urban life and economic struggles. Also, he was raised in a strictly conservative Catholic tradition which provided him the sensibilities and contradictions in his later life that would sharpen his instincts, thinking and emotional acuity.

From 1996 to 2000, he was formally trained at the University of the East – College of Fine Arts where he majored in Advertising and learned the canons of the art world here and abroad. At first, he started producing figurative works and even won some accolades including Metrobank Art Awards where he landed at third place in 2004, among others. In hindsight, he considered this phase to be his amateur experience in art.

Inspired by artists Bernardo Pacquing, Cy Twombly, and National Artist, Jose Joya, Herrera as an artist himself committedly seeks freedom in his expressions and nowhere else does this become available to him than his abstraction as a visual language and style. Hence, this has been decidedly his already fixed frame and style of artistic production.

In terms of artmaking process, he is inclined to mix and develop his own paint with the use of modeling paste and pigment. This DIY approach to him is already an inherent and early part of his creative choices which to him verily defines the textures and colors of his work.

Eventually, Herrera found more freedom in abstraction and it is also where he gained some critical attention and traction to his career. His abstraction at first felt very spare, measured, a bit minimal and restrained until it later eventually turned more lively and evoked freedom which he aspired for and developed over time. Historically and also an artistic tact, his titles do not show in the surface of his work but the ideas, feelings and attitudes are certainly revealed in the way they are painted and executed involve intense at times even quiet confrontations between pigment and surface.

His first solo show, “Divisions” was inspired by his realization of his first taste of a professional environment filled with so much segregation and cliques. Always, his art would be products of personal circumstances and reflections of experiences at a certain time. Effectively, his work is a private language, grammar or narrative is known only to him.

To Herrera, the personal will always be the key themes, context and wisdom of his art, always capturing moments of candor and sincerity. Naming exhibition titles and even works after his personal situations, they are bent on life reflections, his triumphs, his pains, his damages and interests. Although he believes that artists and creative individuals should have some kind of faith as a stimulus to live and act, he believes that experience is the sole driver of his creativity. They are imprints of his journey as an artist and as a person. They are not triggered by his social surroundings but more so the weight and the effects of his own experiences that he amplifies on canvas.

Music, as both ritual and experience, also plays part of his creative life and his sustained process in artmaking. In fact, he initially opted to be trained in the Conservatory of Music at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). He lived a musical life playing as drummer to various bands. Later, his musical inclinations would have a special attention in his third solo exhibition which was inspired by his inclination being a musician along with his favorite songs.