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Rachel Herrera: New classic art |
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Written by Erin Frustaci
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Wednesday, 05 April 2006 |
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Page 1 of 2 Every day Rachel Herrera strives to remember why she paints.
“Sometimes it’s hard to really know exactly why you are painting,” she said.
Though the 26-year-old Fort Collins artist makes an earnest living off of her artwork, she hopes she will never lose sight of her true objective. Herrera said her goal is to express herself through her paintings with integrity and purpose.
“I have integrity,” she said. “I don’t just paint for others.”
Still, Herrera hopes to be able to live off her art and not have to worry about money.
“It’s rough at times because you can’t always count on money coming in,” She said. “I’m doing all right now, but I might have to find a real job eventually.”
The soulful artist has been painting for eight years. Her main medium is oil and her paintings are inspired by the classics. Herrera attended Colorado State University for two years before packing up for one of the greatest places for art in the world— Italy. She spent two months studying at the Florence Academy of Art.
“That’s pretty much all the formal training I’ve had.” Herrera said. But her adoration for art started well before all of that.
“Ever since I was little, I enjoyed it,” she said. “I was really shy when I was little, so art was a way for me to express myself without talking.”
Herrera said she was kind of screwed up in high school and got into drugs, but art pulled her out.
Now she is focused on her paintings, creating figure, portrait, still life and landscape compositions. Figure paintings are her favorite.
“A lot of people can relate to figure and it’s the most expressive thing,” Herrera said. “The figure can express an emotion that nothing else can.”
Her work emulates light and the relationship it shares to an object or form.
Inspired by many of the old masters, Herrera fights assumptions tied to her age.
“I think for my age group there’s not a lot who paint classically,” she said. “When people see my artwork and then they see me, they are surprised because I think they are expecting someone older. When people find out I am a painter, they think I am going to paint something more urban or edgy.”
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