Carmen Herrera

Carmen Herrera’s 29 July to 13 September 2009 exhibition at Ikon Gallery was her first solo show in Europe and her most comprehensive to date. It includes paintings and works on paper from the late 1940s through to the present day. She has consistently refined her focus on space and colour, paint characteristically applied in fat, solid areas. Works were organised based on the harmony and tension of opposing chromatic planes, combining symmetry and asymmetry as a means to give structure to the surface. Her forms are what used to be called hard-edged abstraction, but in Herrera's case it would be more suitably described as euphoria kept in perfect order.