Mili Herrera at Parallel Oaxaca

Artist: Mili Herrera

Exhibition title: Caudal eye (or crocodile tears)

Venue: Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico

Date: January 29 – April 24, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Parallel Oaxaca

Parallel /// Oaxaca is pleased to present Mili Herrera’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Caudal eye (or crocodile tears).

Mili Herrera is an artist with a practice that spans media such as drawing, painting, sculpture, performance and moving image, combining a body of work that is both personal and political. Her work points out emotional imaginaries and onyrical- dreamscapes as open expressions where raw and urgent connections can be found. Her practice connects autobiographical echoes as an expanded narrative, where her works introduce us to characters who reveal themselves and transcend tragic experiences, acting with an impulse of desire towards strategies of survival and revelation.

In the exhibition Caudal eye (or crocodile tears) at Parallel /// Oaxaca, Mili Herrera expands the concept of Cuadal autotomy, a voluntary self-amputation that is used by many species in the natural world as a anti-predation strategy, for example the lizards who brake their tails to leave for predators so they can escape. The works in the exhibition are proposed to be explored as a map of memories and symbols where characters and creatures appear in the midst of a cryptic representation of nature and a vegetational debris, The characters confront their segmented presences and bodies to then proliferate as knitted narratives and actions. One character, the Knight, is seeing both self-detaching its own eye and also stealing an eye from a unearthly/primordial tree. The characters actions and desires evolve as flows of replacement, dominance and restoration, and as time evolves, the viewers shape their bodies, movements and strengths as a process of orientation through scale, transitional visual clues and physical sensations.

Mili Herrera (Oaxaca, 1995) Studied visual arts at the ENPEG “La Esmeralda” from 2014 to 2020. In 2017 she obtained a scholarship for an annual academic exchange from HEAD-Geneve in Geneva, Switzerland (Higher School of Arts and Design). She was part of the YOPE Projects collective 2018-19. She has participated in collective exhibitions such as Museo Carrillo Gil, Do Nothing Clavel Collective Curatorial (2020), Biquini Wax Gallery (CDMX, 2020), Mashimón (CDMX, 2019) and Yope Projects (2018).

Mili Herrera, Caudal eye (or crocodile tears), 2022, exhibition view, Parallel Oaxaca

Mili Herrera, Contra la opacidad (autotomía caudal) / Against opacity (caudal autotomy), 2022, Aerography on linen, colour pencil, oil and acrilyc paint, ceramic, tin work, copper structure and copper earings, 210 x 170 x 35 cm

Mili Herrera, Caudal eye (or crocodile tears), 2022, exhibition view, Parallel Oaxaca

Mili Herrera, Al morir ser flor, 2022, Aerography on paper, colour pencil, metal cage, acrylic paint and feather, 165 x 190 cm

Mili Herrera, Atlas, 2022, Aerography on fiberglass, plexyglass structure, 2 eyeballs + 1 plexyglass structure, eyeballs each 35 x 40 x 35 cm / structure 85 x 72 x 72 cm

Mili Herrera, Caudal eye (or crocodile tears), 2022, exhibition view, Parallel Oaxaca

Mili Herrera, Lágrimas de cocodrilo, 2022, Colour pencil on paper, Work: 27.9 x 35.6 cm with frame: 38 x 45 cm

Mili Herrera, Caudal eye (or crocodile tears), 2022, exhibition view, Parallel Oaxaca

Mili Herrera, El escorpión desnudo, 2022, Colour pencil on paper, works: 17.8 x 25.4 cm with frame: 28 x 35 cm

Mili Herrera, El arco y la flecha, 2022, Colour pencil on paper, works: 25.4 x 17.8 cm with frame: 35 x 28 cm

Mili Herrera, Testigo se encuentra en el espejo, 2022, Colour pencil on paper, Work: 35.6 cm x 27.9 with frame: 45 x 38 cm

Mili Herrera, La lluvia era fría pero atravesaba la armadura, 2022, Colour pencil on paper, works: 25.4 x 17.8 cm with frame: 35 x 28 cm

Mili Herrera, Atlas, 2022, Aerography on fiberglass, plexyglass structure, 2 eyeballs + 1 plexyglass structure, eyeballs each 35 x 40 x 35 cm / structure 85 x 72 x 72 cm