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Josefina Herz | Artist at Mondoir
Nationality: Argentine
Discipline: painting
Based in: Navidad, CL
Biography
Josefina Herz’s artistic journey has been defined by various disciplines, including her training as a fashion designer and her work in wardrobe design for commercials and music videos featuring renowned artists like Snow Patrol, Britney Spears and Blue Man Group, as well as other local talents. For over a decade, she dedicated herself to wardrobe design in the advertising and film industry, eventually becoming an executive producer at several audiovisual production companies in Argentina.
In 2016, her life took a significant turn when she moved to Chile. The solitude she experienced in this new environment allowed her to reconnect with her favorite hobby, pencil drawing. She began exploring realism in topics as animals and portraits. Since then, she has devoted 100% of her time to pencil art, creating new works and participating in art competitions and exhibitions.
Additionally, Josefina teaches classes in her workshop, where she shares her shading techniques using graphite pencil.
Artist Statement
Animals are at the center of my practice, not only because of the emotions they evoke in me, but because they offer a powerful way to explore perception, presence, and the boundaries of representation. I am drawn to the intensity of a gaze, a gesture, or a posture, but also to the physical qualities that make each animal unique: fur, skin, feathers, scales, and the way light interacts with them.
Working primarily with graphite, I use hyperrealism as a starting point rather than an end in itself. I am interested in pushing the limits of detail and precision while simultaneously disrupting them. I experiment with dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, areas of extreme realism alongside unfinished marks, and passages where the animal gradually dissolves into its own texture. At times, the subject becomes almost secondary as fur, scales, or skin expand beyond the figure and begin to function as an abstract visual language.
This tension between recognition and abstraction is central to my work. I want the viewer to recognize the animal immediately, and then to question what they are actually seeing. By magnifying details, isolating textures, or allowing parts of the image to disappear, I explore how perception can shift between the familiar and the unknown.
For me, drawing is also a form of contemplation. I observe intensely and work slowly, allowing the accumulation of thousands of marks to reveal something that cannot be captured through description alone. Through this process, I seek to create images that go beyond the representation of an animal and become an invitation to look more closely—to discover beauty, emotion, and meaning in what might otherwise remain unseen.
Finalist in the “tARTget Prize” (Madrid, Spain)
Semi-Finalist in the “Visual Art Open 2025” (United Kingdom) Published in “The Social Art Award” digital book (Germany) Published in “Studio Visit Book” print edition, Arts To Hearts Project (USA)
Selected to showcase artwork in an exhibition at the “Rómulo Raggio Museum” (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Education
Wardrobe Designer at Universidad de Palermo - Bs As - Argentina 2001 to 2005
Praxis Art Center - One Year Course - 2025 to 2026
Art Education Course at MoMA, NYC (Online): “Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art” - 2024