Plus One XL (High quality Print Version) by Josefina Herz
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Graphite
Dimensions: 70 x 50 cm
Edition production year: 2024
Edition of 50
Price: $400.00 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?
Plus One XL turns a dramatic difference in bodily scale into a study of proximity: the calf’s placement makes the adult’s monumentality appear relational rather than solitary.
- Herz states that animals let her test the boundary between recognition and abstraction. Here, anatomical description remains legible, while pale and dark passages simplify the whales into broad tonal masses.
- In the supplied photograph, the adult spans the sheet diagonally and the calf follows below, both facing left. Their near-parallel alignment implies coordinated movement, although the untouched paper withholds any depicted ocean or destination.
- Catalogued as graphite on paper, the drawing combines fine lines with layered shading to distinguish pleated throats, mottled skin and rounded volume. Graphite also allows the lighter areas to approach the paper’s blank field.
- The work is a useful encounter for examining how naturalistic animal drawing can convey dependence without facial expression or narrative scenery. Size, spacing and repeated direction carry the relationship.
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...
