One of the most significant motivations behind the recent visit of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas (MoCAA) to São Paulo was the visit to booth D-24, where the distinguished Cuban artist Josué Pavel Herrera Romero was presenting his work. Represented by Galeria Contempo—making its debut appearance at SP-Arte in this 2025 edition—Herrera has built a remarkable career in Brazil, where he has resided since 2016. His academic background includes a Doctorate in Visual Arts from UNICAMP in São Paulo, in addition to a Master’s degree in Visual Poetics and Creative Processes, and a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts Education earned in his native Cuba.
Based in São Paulo, Galeria Contempo has represented Herrera for four years, and on this occasion, the gallery introduced one of his most compelling and recent series: 7 Nights, 365 Days II (2025), a pictorial installation composed of seven oil-on-canvas panels, each measuring 30 x 40 cm. In this body of work, Herrera reexamines the notion of the border as both a pictorial motif and a conceptual anchor, offering an intimate yet political meditation on the temporal condition of the migrant—one who moves yet remains halted at the threshold. Each painting, rendered in nocturnal or twilight atmospheres, dramatizes the changing perception of a border seen through multiple moments. The night—both title and thematic substrate—marks a temporal space in which geographical limits, always fluid, momentarily acquire a permeability denied to them in daylight. The series invites the viewer to inhabit the position of the wayfarer denied passage, contemplating a suspended state between hope and displacement.
MoCAA’s interest in Herrera’s work lies not only in his academic rigor, but also in the profound symbolic resonance of his practice, which thoughtfully engages with island experience, migratory processes, and memory as a foundation of identity. His visual language—dreamlike, expansive, and deeply subjective—echoes the contemporary concerns of a region like the Americas, where mobility, uprootedness, and personal reinvention form a shared narrative.
Herrera’s collaboration with MoCAA extended beyond the fair: he enthusiastically contributed to the installation of the museum’s group exhibition at the Instituto Cervantes in São Paulo. His professional dedication and creative engagement left a lasting impression on the visiting delegation. His ability to generate profound visual dialogues and his commitment to collective initiatives position him as an ideal interlocutor for inter-institutional cultural exchanges.
MoCAA has expressed a clear interest in including Herrera’s work in future exhibitions in Miami, Florida, as part of its ongoing cultural exchange program with Latin American artists. The possibility of presenting his oeuvre to a broader U.S. audience offers a meaningful opportunity to build bridges between artistic production in the Southern Cone and the Caribbean and audiences in the Global North—at a time when art is a vital tool for reimagining shared identities.
Herrera’s work speaks not only from personal experience but also from within a broader contemporary pictorial tradition committed to themes of territory, belonging, and memory. His journey—from Havana to São Paulo—now points toward new geographies, solidifying a voice that, though born on an island, expands with continental force.
About the artist
J. Pavel Herrera (Havana, Cuba, 1979) is a Cuban visual artist based in Brazil since 2016. His work explores notions of insularity, displacement, and borderlands through a deeply subjective and poetic pictorial language. He holds a Ph.D. in Visual Arts from UNICAMP, São Paulo, where he also completed a Master’s in Visual Poetics and Creative Processes. His undergraduate degree in Visual Arts Education was obtained in Cuba. Herrera’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Cuba, Brazil, and Europe, and is part of a growing dialogue on contemporary Latin American identity and visual culture.