Plus One XL (Original Work) by Josefina Herz
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Graphite pencil
Dimensions: 70 x 50 cm
Year: 2024
Price: $1000.00 USD
Status: available
A vast whale occupies the frame, accompanied by its calf. Plus One XL explores scale as both a physical and emotional dimension. The monumental presence of the adult whale contrasts with the small figure of its offspring, creating a quiet relationship between strength and vulnerability, permanence and growth. Rendered entirely in graphite, the work relies on the density of the drawing to give weight and presence to both bodies. Every texture, shadow, and mark contributes to the sense of volume, while the surrounding space amplifies their scale and isolation. The title plays with the familiar expression “plus one” — an additional presence, someone who joins another. Here, the phrase takes on a literal and visual meaning: one becomes two. Plus One XL is an image of companionship at monumental scale — two lives sharing the same space, moving together through an immense world.
Why collect this work?
A large adult whale and a smaller calf are separated by open paper, making their difference in scale carry the image’s account of proximity, dependence, and shared movement.
- Animals are central to Josefina Herz’s practice. Her statement describes hyperrealism as a starting point that she disrupts through unfinished marks and dissolving contours, an approach relevant to the adult whale’s unevenly resolved surface here.
- In the photograph, the adult spans the upper field while the calf rises diagonally beneath it. Their offset alignment avoids simple symmetry; the surrounding blank area reads less as depicted ocean than as distance held between two bodies.
- Catalogue metadata identifies graphite pencil on paper, dated 2024, at 70 × 50 cm. Graphite permits broad tonal gradation without introducing colour, giving the whales volume while preserving the exposed paper as an active spatial element.
- The work gives a concrete basis for considering how animal imagery can convey kinship without human figures or narrative setting. Its title, “Plus One XL,” also recasts an everyday social phrase as a relation of unequal scale.
About the Artist
Josefina Herz
Josefina Herz is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Navidad, CL.
Nationality: Argentine
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...
