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Fernando Varela & Carmen Herrera
Form and Void, New York | 23E67, 18 February - 5 April 2025

Fernando Varela & Carmen Herrera: Form and Void

Past exhibition
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • News
  • Press release
Works
  • Fernando Varela, Close-Ups III, 2021
    Fernando Varela, Close-Ups III, 2021
  • Fernando Varela, Close-Ups VIII, 2025
    Fernando Varela, Close-Ups VIII, 2025
  • Fernando Varela, Form & Void I, 2015
    Fernando Varela, Form & Void I, 2015
  • Fernando Varela, Close-Ups IV, 2021
    Fernando Varela, Close-Ups IV, 2021
  • Fernando Varela, Form & Void V, 2023
    Fernando Varela, Form & Void V, 2023
  • Fernando Varela, Form & Void XX, 2025
    Fernando Varela, Form & Void XX, 2025
  • Fernando Varela, Form & Void VI, 2023
    Fernando Varela, Form & Void VI, 2023
  • Fernando Varela, Fragmentations III, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Fragmentations III, 2024
  • Fernando Varela, Form & Void VII, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Form & Void VII, 2024
  • Fernando Varela, Fragmentations II, 2023
    Fernando Varela, Fragmentations II, 2023
  • Fernando Varela, Fragmentations I, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Fragmentations I, 2024
  • Fernando Varela, Form and Void XI, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Form and Void XI, 2024
  • Fernando Varela, Form and Void XII, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Form and Void XII, 2024
  • Fernando Varela, Form and Void XIII, 2024
    Fernando Varela, Form and Void XIII, 2024
  • Carmen Herrera, Island, 2020
    Carmen Herrera, Island, 2020
  • Carmen Herrera, Verde y Amarillo, 2017
    Carmen Herrera, Verde y Amarillo, 2017
Installation Views
  • Img 5035
  • Img 5038
  • Img 5055
  • Img 4983
  • Img 5003
  • Img 5004
  • Img 5052
  • Img 5164 2
  • Img 4998
News
  • Artist Talk with Fernando Varela: Part II

    Artist Talk with Fernando Varela: Part II

    "Form & Void" 25 February 2025
    Uruguyan-Dominican artist Fernando Varela (b. 1951) shares his insights on the profound greatness of being an artist, the challenges faced both creatively and within the...
    Read more
  • Artist Talk with Fernando Varela: Part I

    Artist Talk with Fernando Varela: Part I

    "Form & Void" 25 February 2025
    Join us for an engaging conversation with Fernando Varela (b. 1951) as he delves into the early inspirations and cultural influences that have shaped his...
    Read more
Press release

Upsilon Gallery proudly presents Form and Void: Fernando Varela and Carmen Herrera, exploring the dynamic interplay between presence and absence, color and space, structure and transcendence. This exhibition unites recent evocative works of Uruguayan artist Fernando Varela, complimented by a selection of crisp geometric works by American-Cuban minimalist Carmen Herrera. This will be Fernando Varela’s first exhibition with Upsilon Gallery and his inaugural debut in New York.  

 

Fernando Varela (b. 1951) born in Montevideo, Uruguay, has been based in Santo Domingo since 1975, and is renowned for his deeply philosophical and spiritual approach to art. Inspired by the teachings of spiritual master Bô Yin Ra, Varela reflects an ongoing pursuit of the perfect composition, one that exists beyond the constraints of time and place. Drawing from the influences of abstract expressionists such as Rothko, Pollock, and de Kooning, Varela’s creations integrate color, form, and transcendence in a visual language that is both personal and universal.  

 

Carmen Herrera (1915–2022), an artist of Cuban origin, spent her formative years between Havana, Paris, and New York, where she developed her signature geometric abstraction. Herrera’s hard-edged compositions, often defined by the meticulous use of two or three selective colors, reveal a profound understanding of form and space. Despite working alongside the Abstract Expressionist movement, her work remained distinct in its distilled simplicity and meditative precision, gaining widespread recognition only later in life at the age of eighty-nine. “I do it because I have to do it; it’s a compulsion that also gives me pleasure,” she told The Times in 2009.   

 

Form and Void juxtaposes Varela’s spiritual, expressive dynamism with Herrera’s measured, minimalist precision. Varela paintings explore circular spaces extracted and replicated from each other, while the striking forms in these selected prints by Herrera delineate contracts of strong angular spaces. Each seems on a relentless quest for a resolution of shapes within space or a conforming of composition both spiritual and physical. The exhibition creates a conversation between two artists whose works, though visually divergent, share a common inquiry into the fundamental nature of form, balance, and the void in between.  

 

Fernando Varela has exhibited in galleries throughout Dominican Republic and throughout the US, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, France, Greece, Canada, and Mexico. His paintings are showcased in a number of prestigious institutions like the National Museum of Visual Arts Montevideo, Uruguay; The Museum of Contemporary Art of Guayaquil, Ecuador, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, and many more.  

 

Carmen Herrera was born in Cuba, studied architecture at Universidad de La Habana, Cuba, and attended the Art Students League in New York. In 2016 a large-scale survey of her works have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York, which was also exhibited at the Wexner Center for Arts, Columbus, OH, and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany. Other significant solo exhibitions include the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, and El Museo del Barrio, New York. Herrera has also exhibited in major group shows at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, City Hall Park in New York, and SITE Santa Fe, NM, among many others.  

 

Form and Void: Fernando Varela and Carmen Herrera runs from February 18th - April 5th, with an opening reception on February 18th from 5-7 PM at Upsilon Gallery New York.  

 

 Upsilon Gallery is located at 23 East 67th Street, New York, NY 10065. Exhibition hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10:00 AM-6:00 PM, Saturday, 10 AM-5 PM & by appointment.  

 

Please contact the gallery at (646) 476-4190 or email info@upsilongallery.com for further details. 

Related artists

  • Carmen Herrera

    Carmen Herrera

  • Fernando Varela

    Fernando Varela

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