jonathan herrera soto

Abrazeme fuerte fuerte fuerte fuerte Mi Amor. Aprietame Duro. Rompeme Las Costillas (Hold me tightly / tight tight / tight My Love / Squeeze me Hard / Break my ribs). 2019. Collagraph on handmade paper, unique print 1/1. 30”x40”

Jonathan Herrera Soto is a print-based studio artist originally from Chicago, IL. He graduated with a BFA from the Minneapolis College in Art and Design in 2017. Recent solo exhibitions of Herrera Soto’s work include Querida Presencia at the Duluth Art Institute in Duluth, MN and Entre Rios y Montañas at Annex Gallery in Chicago, IL. He has participated in numerous artist residencies including Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; Hambidge, GA; The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; 33 Officia Creativia, Toffia, Italy; Spudnik Press Cooperative, Chicago, IL; Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN; and Epicenter, Green River, Utah. Herrera Soto is a recent recipient of the Santo Foundation Individual Artist Award, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and is a current 2019-2021 Jerome Hill Artist Grant fellow.

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“The Sin Título series (2018-2019) consists of collagraph prints of the artist’s own clothes, resembling discarded articles of clothing abandoned at the U.S.-Mexico border. Often the victims of these crimes, or rather their bodies that disappear, leave behind stories not in words but in gesture. Trails of clothing are found in the deserts between borders as they get stuck on fences with barbed wire or wash up onto shores of beaches. These garments are sometimes attached to lifeless bodies while others manage to claim autonomy from the flesh. Through these collagraphs, akin to rubbings, Herrera Soto explores the connection between clothing and the body, as well as the relationship between forensic evidence and items of personal significance. By employing this print-based process, Herrera Soto partakes in an act of remembrance as he produces tracings and impression of clothing left behind. His harsh, and almost violent, treatment of the objects carries forth into the artwork’s final presentation. Ultimately, the objects of clothing rendered in Herrera Soto’s work are declarations unto themselves, left behind by bodies to evoke lived experiences.” -JHS