In early December, I crossed the city in the cold to meet Diego Herman at his studio. Diego is a young painter from Brussels, with Mexican origins, who is exhibiting for the first time at the Husk Gallery (Uccle) until the end of of the month. Between grids and well-aligned brushes, Diego and I talked about the themes surrounding his exhibition and his artistic project in general, his link with Mexico and how he lives his biculturality.
From the beginning of November and for a few weeks to come, Husk Gallery is hosting “How to see through a fence”, the first solo exhibition by painter Diego Herman. Diego is a young Brussels artist of Mexican origin, and offers in Uccle an introduction to his body of work. As the name of the exhibition suggests, this serial work revolves mainly around wire mesh.
A fence in all its states
Fence as object, texture and symbol. It all began in Mexico, in the student notebooks of his grandfather, a university professor at UNAM in the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences. One of his students photographed birds in captivity at a Mexico City zoo. “There was something special about this bird, it was like a precious object”. A jewel surrounded by wire mesh, whose pattern Diego reproduces instinctively. It was then that a presentiment began to form around this texture. A pattern that would never leave him.
Diego is inexhaustible on the subject. Technically, he reproduces them in counter-form, first painting the background of the canvas and then adding the squares inside the mesh, almost like a mosaic. The result is a luminous, “neon-like” effect, visually appealing due to the repetition of the geometric motif. Recently, he has been developing a new technique by pressing a real wire mesh against the canvas, which he then spray-paints. “With this technique, we find a kind of imprint, like an ancestor of photography. I started using this technique in a rather special context. We had to move out of my childhood home, and this fence surrounded the garden. It was a way of preserving an imprint, a hyper-physical memory of that feeling”.
The painter takes an object, both random and violent, and has fun twisting its meaning. “There's a tension between what you know about the grid and what you see. A fence is transparent; your body can't go through it, but your eyes can. It conveys the idea of an inaccessible landscape that you want to discover even more”. An object all the more powerful for the fact that a large part of Diego's family lives in Mexico, notably in Tijuana, on the border with the United States. “I've been going to that border since I was a kid. It's a bit strange, it was like a tourist attraction”. A fence made of the same wood as all the others. “Every time someone puts a line somewhere to delimit, they're essentially reproducing the same gesture: dividing public space in two, creating the foreign, differentiating what's inside from what's outside”.
A reflection that continues with the series of coyote paintings. These paintings are inspired by infra-red video rushes of an American farmer who, to protect his cows, goes to extreme lengths to arm himself against these animals he considers pests. “The coyote is the same, it's the foreigner. Even though it's a native North American animal par excellence. It's considered a nuisance because it eats cows that weren't there in the first place, which replaced the bison, themselves killed by the settlers so that the native populations no longer had a means of subsistence. Behind this series, there's all this immense delirium. In fact, you become a nuisance when you're not profitable. With a fence, we can make you a stranger without you being one. We decide that the coyote is no longer at home”.
A profound reflection on our behavior, although humans are totally absent from Diego's canvases. “My conviction is that I'm doing landscape painting that fulfills the role of portrait painting. It speaks of man without painting him”. Like, for example, this painting of an ear of corn, called “Self-portrait”, in reference to the Aztec myth of the creation of man from grains of this cereal.
It's a reflection he can bring to fruition through painting, even though he was originally destined for illustration. “I realized that I was potentially a painter when I realized that I was a bad illustrator. My illustrations were taking up more and more space, becoming full-page images. In illustration, at Saint-Luc, every image must be intelligible, it illustrates, it serves the text. There's no room for mystery". He finished his bachelor's degree, took a food job and reconnected with painting. “I used to paint in the evenings in secret, as an outlet for the brutality of the working world. Then I was lucky enough to be accepted at the academy”.
The fence as a metaphor for biculturalism
A reflection on his art that is also animated by his personal journey and origins. The son of a Mexican mother and former singer, Diego grew up in a home at the crossroads of two cultures, generating many questions about his identity and sense of belonging. “The fence is like that too, it creates two sides, it implies that you're on one side or the other. As a child of two cultures, I'm the fence, I'm the limit, the edge, the line where these two entities touch”.
What's more, Mexico is no insignificant country when it comes to painting. It's a country rich in tradition and artistic practice. And world-renowned painters with a strong point of view. A destiny mapped out in the stars for Diego Herman, whose family legend has it that his first name comes from the muralist, Diego Rivera. “The one time I skipped school in high school, I went to the Beaux-Arts in Brussels to see an exhibition on Frida Kahlo. To be perfectly honest, I skipped because I'd had my head shaved, and I didn't want to go to school”. Serendipity plays its part and the Mexican artist's work appeals to Diego in so many ways. “It's popular art, as much in its treatment as in its subject matter. There's something immediate about it. It's like muralism, there's an idea of making art useful. It's not about making it accessible, it's about making it useful. There's a desire to educate people, to serve them, to teach them about history”.
In fact, today, it is his Mexican family who provide him with the greatest support in his artistic career. This dual identity, which led to some complicated childhood situations, has become a strength. “When I was a child, I was often subjected to racist remarks at school. But in Mexico, I always feel welcome. In my current work, I exploit these origins, I play on them. I had to put up with so much when I was a kid, but now it's become an advantage. Having these two cultures, I've often been told that I'm 50/50, half and half. But in reality, you're twice 100. These cultures add up, they overlap, they don't divide".
A superposition of cultures that is proving successful, given the initial positive feedback and new exhibition opportunities in 2025, with other cultural institutions in Belgium. Before we leave, I ask Diego for his definition of “hogar” (home) and a related object. “My personal history makes the idea of home a fragile one. I grew up in a lot of different places and moved around a lot. The places where I felt comfortable, I always ended up having to leave. But I'm lucky enough to paint things that are close to me, and sometimes they become imprints, memories. Like the gate in my garden”. Paintings as a home, with a common thread of grids.
Info:
"How to see through a fence" by Diego Herman.
Husk Gallery, Ch. de Waterloo 690, 1180 Bruxelles.
Until December 21st.
© Diego Herman
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