José Alejandro Herrera
El CoperoSold
- Year
- 2024
- Technique
- Acrylic/Canvas
- Dimensions
- 120 × 120 cm
- Collection
- Urbana
- Status
- Sold
- Palette
- cerulean blue, emerald green, bright pink, mustard ochre, reddish brown
- Brushwork
- Acrylic paint with clean strokes and defined graphic contours, featuring homogeneous and saturated chromatic planes.
Curatorial analysis
Curatorial analysis
The pulse of the San José neighborhood converges at the exact meeting point between the sidewalk and the street, where the shaved-ice vendor's cart articulates a spontaneous communal choreography. Rather than reducing the urban setting to a mere backdrop, the painting densifies space through a near-vertical layering of corrugated tin roofs, grooved wood, and facades ranging from ochre to magenta. This elevated, axonometric perspective dispenses with conventional hierarchies, placing the distant flight of a small airplane on equal footing with the minute gesture of two children choosing the flavor of their granizado.
Every section of the canvas operates as a simultaneous micro-narrative. While roofers repair a zinc sheet and a cat stalks along the eaves, windows and doorways reveal glimpses of domestic intimacy: a phone call, a couple's clandestine embrace under a porch, the quiet rest of elders behind iron grilles. This polyphony of everyday actions is sustained by a firm, crisp contour, where flat, saturated brushwork dignifies the vernacular materials of popular housing, turning rusted panels and tongue-and-groove siding into a vibrant chromatic geography.
Toward the horizon, modern towers and historic domes signal the transition into a capital expanding upward, yet whose most genuine identity continues to beat at street level. The car barely entering the foreground and the cargo wheelbarrows anchor the scene in a tangible present, marked by the persistence of traditional trades against the accelerated pace of the contemporary metropolis. The scene captures the city's collective memory not through nostalgic testimony, but through a visual vitality that celebrates neighborhood complicity as an endearing haven of coexistence.
More works by José Alejandro Herrera
66 works
Available works
- El Bus de la EsperanzaJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2024
- Saliendo de misaJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2017
- Jolgorio de LorosJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2024
- Jolgorio de TucanesJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2024
- Gatos en Blanco y NegroJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2012
- Primera CitaJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2012
- Rezo del niñoJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2012
- Pizote en KayakJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2008
- Catching upJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2007
- GataJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2007
- Gato NegroJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2007
- Jirafa y Cebra Viendo TeleJosé Alejandro Herrera · 2007
Similar works
By subject, palette and style
- El Cuerno de la AbundanciaDaniel Quisaguano · 1999
- Volcán BurbujeanteDaniel Quisaguano · 1999
- Árbol de la VidaDaniel Quisaguano · 1999
- Recuerdos del ArenalHector Campos · 1996
- Bendición de los Animales, San Antonio EscazúAntonio Mejía · 2005
- Umbral CaribeñoIleana Piszk · 2023
- Gato ObservandoCarlos Tapia · 2009
- Escena Típica San Antonio de EscazúInquire about availabilityJorge Araya · 2012
- Casa San Antonio EscazúInquire about availabilityJorge Araya · 2022
- Tocando las Puertas del CieloSoldCarlos Tapia · 2014
- El ArmadilloSoldJorge Rojas Alfaro · 2000
- Cuerda flojaSoldCarlos Tapia · 2021
