CURATOR: Taxidermy birds, the Plastic Club, and Mario-esque landscapes.

Art-geek extraordinaire Courtney Sexton presents a weekly selection of Philly's must-see gallery exhibits. This week:Taxidermy birds, the Plastic Club and Mario-esque landscapes.

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CURATOR: Taxidermy birds, the Plastic Club, and Mario-esque landscapes.

POSTED: Friday, February 17, 2012, 4:00 PM

Filed Under: Arts | Arts Events The Curator

Art-geek extraordinaire Courtney Sexton presents a weekly selection of Philly's must-see gallery exhibits. This week:Taxidermy birds, the Plastic Club and Mario-esque landscapes.

Federico Herrero at Bridgette Mayer Gallery

A Costa Rican artist of international renown, Federico Herrero makes his U.S. gallery debut this month at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. Herrero, originally from San Jose, has shown his paintings and murals all over the world, from Iceland to Germany and Greece to Japan. The space at Bridgette Mayer seems to be appropriate for his inspired contemporary landscapes —professional yet approachable, with clean lines, perfect lighting and just the right amount of wall for the artist’s large paintings.

On my first walk around the exhibit, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the cotton-candy-cloud sensation that I was getting. Herrero’s large-scale square canvases are filled with rounded rectangles of bubble-gum pink, spring green and baby blue that coalesce into a futuristic, video-game-esque fantasy land — almost as if Mario was going to pop out from somewhere. Scattered between shapes are the outlines of unidentifiable creatures that appear to inhabit the landscapes. But the more time I spent with the pieces, the more I began to see emerging from them. Here, curator Felicity Lunn explains, “space is built with energy fields articulated through color. A slight tension permeates these fields, somewhat as aftershocks triggered by displaced tectonic plates.” Here and there, beneath a surface layer of fluff, subtle smatterings of dark and displaced spraypaint and large areas of negative space, indicate that there is more to Herrero’s landscapes than meets the eye.

Through Feb. 25, free, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, 709 Walnut St., 215-413-8893, bridgettemayergallery.com.

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