Current State of my Art
In my work, towards Sur[real]isation,I combine analogue and digital techniques, contrasting visual and sonic utopias with the everyday inflorescence of sound spaces. My works often appear ethereal, sometimes nearly invisible — yet they are meant to evoke something that wants to be remembered. Floating in the atmosphere, they seek to capture the essence of their own time and invite experience: an artwork, too, has a lifespan.
If I were a cyborg, I would have grown antennae and additional sensors to better perceive what I cannot understand — because there are things entirely beyond our control. Engaged with vital processes, transformation, and growth, I play with format, display, and scale — deconstructing, fragmenting, and re-layering.
My work is site- and time-specific. It often crystallizes into fragile sculptural forms or immersive, fictional realities — opening space for live participation, interventions, and performances. It expands and contracts across abstract empirical paintings, collages, filmic works, and conceptual pieces that transcend traditional media.
I juxtapose sound and image to explore not only aesthetics but also an inner experience of musicality. I am interested in processes of change — both within the ethereal environment and in social structures — and in their confrontation with technology. My work reflects on the dialectics between public and private spheres, inner and outer worlds, and their osmotic boundaries.
I address themes such as language, alternative forms of communication, life, nature-artifice, and perception across physical and virtual dimensions. I aim to provoke emotional response while leaving space for the imagination.
I am particularly drawn to nature, climate, and the otherness of the other — in politically charged contexts, embodied in the artwork itself, and carried in the skin and voice of the artist (mi voz). Within this U-turn, I seek to open my practice to new and refreshed possibilities in visual, sonic, and performative forms, and to foster meaningful, one-to-one encounters. This is my mission through art.
To me, artistic resilience is a way to transform worlds.
JULIANA HERRERO
(b. 1975, Patagonia) is a Patagonian-born artist based in Vienna since 2006. Growing up between the sea and the mountains shaped her deep connection to nature and a lasting sense of freedom. Her transdisciplinary training spans art, architecture, dance, and music — beginning at INSA (now IUPA – Instituto Universitario Patagónico de las Artes) in General Roca, RN; followed by architectural studies at UBA in Buenos Aires; and culminating in conceptual design at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where she later joined the film class to expand her work in time-based media.
Herrero’s artistic practice is grounded in spatial sensitivity and often evolves into temporal, site-specific explorations — what she describes as a media archaeology of the future. Working with sound, performance, and poetic spatial interventions, her pieces are often ephemeral, yet visually and materially striking.
She has presented solo exhibitions such as: Pequeño Concierto [Hörkabinett] (TONSPUR, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, 2025), One of a Kind (art in public space, Vienna 20th district, 2024), Play Please (Odeon Theatre, 2023), Fuga N22 (Jan Arnold Gallery, MQ Vienna, 2022), on the filaments, there where the plateau rises (sehsaal, 2019), and REM (Bildraum 01, 2017).
Her work has also been featured in group shows at institutions such as das weisse haus, Künstlerhaus Vienna, MDW University of Music and Performing Arts, esc medien kunst labor (Graz), Maison de l’Argentine – Cité Internationale Universitaire (Paris), Centro Cultural Borges, Fundación Andreani, CCK (Buenos Aires), Centro Cultural Alberdi (Neuquén), Kunsthalle LAB (Bratislava), and various museums in Finland including Kajaani Art Museum and K.H. Rendlunds Museum (Kokkola).
Earlier participations include the BA exhibitions in Vienna (Semper Depot) and Rotterdam (Berlage Institute, 2002), Festival Junger Talente (Messe Offenbach, 2003), and a performative projection for Yoko Ono: Dream Universe at Portikus (Frankfurt, 2005), projecting across the Main river.
She was a studio artist at studio das weisse haus (2013–2015), and during the pandemic (2020–2021) worked in guest studios at WUK and the WUK Ausweichquartier, where she initiated Slow Wave, a platform for open artistic encounters addressing climate and transformation.
Her distinctions include a special recognition in Austria’s 2015 Outstanding Artist Awards – Interdisciplinary Arts by the Federal Chancellery, the Andreani Foundation Award for Visual Arts (3rd Prize, Revelación) in Buenos Aires, and production funding from the City of Vienna (Visual Arts and New Media, 2018) for on the filaments, there where the plateau rises.
Current Inspirations / Ongoing Research
The artist is currently deeply inspired by the beauty and spirit of wild fauna. She follows the learnings of Puma Lontla online, as well as the cameras of dolphindronedom in the North Atlantic, recording dolphins and whales, and the camera of Lorenzo in the South Atlantic documenting the Ballena Franca Austral along the shores—where she also swims in open waters when returning to her homeland.
Parallel to her own artistic practice, Juliana Herrero initiated SLOW WAVE, a professional, participatory platform exploring art, nature, and climate. It has been realized in art spaces, including museums, public spaces, and outdoor sites, documented in press releases and archives. [Learn more →]
Juliana Herrero
*1975
ART PRAXIS I PRAXIS DER KUNST
2001-Present
1:1 spatial installations, sound installations, musical objects, architectures of atmospheres, sculptural works, transpositions as synesthesia in watercolor as experimental cyanotype, mixed media, interventions in situ and live, conceptual art
Juliana Herrero was born in 1975 in Choele Choel, Río Negro.
She was trained in Argentina and Germany, developing later her work across the latitudes.
She studied at INSA (now IUPA -Instituto Patagónico de las Artes) in G. Roca and Fadu UBA in Buenos Aires, Argentina and at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
Currently, the artist works between Buenos Aires and Vienna, where she has lived since 2006.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Juliana Herrero is a Patagonian artist born in southern Argentina and based in Vienna. Her practice moves across territories shaped by her personal and emotional history, connecting work between Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and Europe. Since 2006, she has been building a production network that understands displacement as a form of multiple belonging.
Raised between sea and mountains, her connection to Patagonian landscapes is foundational: the environment becomes both a site of exploration and a territory for open-field processes. Her transdisciplinary background integrates art, architecture, dance, and music.
Her work brings together ephemeral installations, soundscapes, and performative actions, exploring what she calls Sur[real]isation, as well as participatory and relational forms, and the interplay between space, body, and matter. For her, artistic resistance becomes operative—a way of inhabiting and transforming worlds.
This is a virtual address for the artist, some of her virtual and natural environments extend here: