An interview with 2025 Artist Resident Herman Aguirre ahead of his group show opening on July 10, 2026 at Chicago Artists Coalition. This spotlight series aims to serve as an intimate introduction to our residents and their work through a Q&A-style interview. Interview originally conducted on March 30, 2026 by Dana Randall, Communications and Alumni Relations Manager at Chicago Artists Coalition.
Q: Do you have any common themes running through your most recent works in progress?
A: I just had my show, El Jardin, at Zolla Lieberman from February through March of this year, and I think the stuff that I showed there, I’m sort of piggybacking off of here. I’ve been referencing a lot of my immediate surroundings in the neighborhood where I grew up in known as the Back of the Yards located in the South Side of Chicago. I was thinking about the area and location as a witness while making the work. I referenced areas where there’ve been victims of gun violence and areas where I experienced violence.
Now, I’m shifting my primary focus from man-made materials such as walls, fences, doors, windows, and sidewalks as the main imagery to things that are more organic, like trees, earth, sky, flowers, and things that are more lively. So I feel like I’ve been experimenting more and I’m in a transition phase. So looking and collecting has been a big part of my process. I’ve also been thinking about color and ideas of rebirth. I’ve been trying to push more movement in the work and organic matter to counter the previous body of work. In a nutshell, that’s sort of where I’m at now, at least visually speaking.
Q: How has your work evolved since being in the CAC residency?
A: It’s been very beneficial to my practice and my process. As we started the residency, I was finishing up the works for my solo show at Zolla Lieberman. It’s been several months since we began the residency, so it feels like I’ve been living and showing “El Jardin” series, all while continuing to make new work. It’s been a bit hectic but rewarding. I’ve been in a kind of limbo state of transition so the residency has been useful to find clarity. The CAC group meetings have been instrumental and inspiring. To hear my peers express their ideas, thoughts, experiences, and hear them go through similar transitions has allowed me to feel more comfortable.
I think right now, the biggest theme that has been present in our conversations has been hauntology. It’s the main idea we’ve discussed and has shaped some of my own ideas in the studio. I’ve been continually thinking about remnants, things left behind, and how objects can capture someone’s presence. The meetings with my pod have been really insightful, and have shifted my thoughts more so now than before when we started.
I’ve also been picking up on things like mood, color, and aspects that we are all interested in collectively. It’s been fun to meet every three or four weeks outside of the cafecitos and residency programming. We’ve been trying to meet as often as possible to share ideas, chat, visit each other’s studios, and exhibitions. I’ve been getting a lot of input from them and their work.
Q: What are some of your biggest artistic influences? Where do you find inspiration?
A: Most of the time, I have to do a lot of research, and it’s usually based on topics that affect my immediate surroundings, whether political, social, or personal. It’s usually a thread between the three. My work is based on topics that are in my periphery, ranging from family issues to events that affect my community. Whether it’s an issue or something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, I allow it to fester a bit. I take about half a year or so to dive in, think, research, look, read, and then I start making.
Regarding artists, it’s funny, but I actually have a list that I wrote down like two or three months ago. Some artists whose practice and process inspire me are Doris Salcedo, Francisco Goya, Ivan Albright, Jay Defeo, and Stephen De Staebler. Rembrandt, Eugene Leroy, Robert Rauschenberg, Judy Chicago, Leon Golub, and Milton Resnik are all amazing too. A little bit of everything.
Q: Tell me about your favorite mediums. What about them speaks to you?
A: I’ve been working a lot with sawdust, marble dust, calcium carbonate, and recycled paint. I’ve been using them with my oils and acrylics. What it does is that it speeds up the dry time and it also makes the paint more brittle, which gives me more textures and different finishes. I tend to put my mixtures on pallet paper or glass. I allow them to oxidize and when they dry, I peel them off. They end up looking like a big paint film or skin, which I can bend, cut, or adhere to the surface.
I’m messing around with different materials so that I can get different surfaces, ranging from very opaque to very shiny. I’m really trying to push the mediums as much as I can, and that’s been really exciting because sometimes I make a ton of mistakes. The mistakes are always welcomed and I find most of the time are more interesting.
When I start a piece I ask myself several questions when it comes to the materiality of the piece. For instance, if I want something really dry, like dirt, how would I do that? Or if I want something to have luster or be shiny, how would I go about that? I’ve been experimenting with a lot of fillers and additives lately, and have been sanding the surfaces as well. It’s been fun to get various results and use the scraps I have left over. The paint skins and leftover chunks often end up being incorporated as collage elements into the work as structure or to generate specific forms.
Q: Do you have a favorite time of day to create? How does the time you find or choose to make influence your practice?
A: I am a morning person, so I’m up really early at like six or seven in the morning every day. And my best hours in the studio are literally from, let’s say, eight or nine all the way until three or four in the afternoon. After that, I start fading.
I like going for long rides in the bus and the train a lot. I also take long walks with my wife and dog throughout the neighborhood and it helps me with ideas. Wherever I’m going I take notes on my phone, take a bunch of photos, or write things down on a small note pad. I get a lot of inspiration that way, and it helps me see my ideas clearer.
Q: In keeping with our values, one thing we want to do is cultivate a community of knowledge-sharing. What is something you would encourage other artists to learn about? What is something that made a difference in your career?
A: I would encourage all artists to have a great team behind them who they can trust when it comes to your work and practice. I have a mentor and really great friend named Tony Phillips, who I’ve been working with for the last fifteen years. He was one of my undergraduate teachers. He’s someone that I always bring into the studio when I feel like something’s cooking, and then I slowly build confidence off of his advice and suggestions. I also have my wife, Paloma, who visits my studio regularly, who has a good eye, and has seen my development as an artist since our high school years. They both help me tremendously, and are amazing individuals who are completely honest, challenge me, and always uplift me.
Another aspect that has made an impact on my career is knowing when to show work, where to show it, and allow yourself to live with the work before it goes out into the world. I always try to figure out when the right time to show what I’m working on and when I need more time to digest and evaluate the things I’ve made. I believe in that old school mentality of having more mystic as an artist and allowing people to miss my work instead of constantly showing it all the time. Sometimes as artists, we get very excited and it’s too early. I think it’s important to acknowledge and be aware that each body of work is different and each one needs to be shared in its own unique way to cultivate momentum.
Q: Do you have a personal philosophy relating to your practice or your life?
A: Whenever I want to show something important, most of the time, I try to make sure that I have something to say. That’s really important to me, and content has always been the first thing that starts my process. If there’s something that’s really affecting my experience or others around me, it takes a while for it to fester and visually show up somehow. I wait for that, and I try to be patient. Then, once I feel like I have something that drives me internally and I need to get out of my system… then I start the process of making.
Most of the time, I try to use a few topics when I start, whether they are generic or extremely complex, and I try to filter them through my experience. Usually it takes months and it has to be something that has substance, is difficult to resolve, and I struggle with everyday. I begin by researching and dissecting the issue or conflict. Once I have more knowledge and a sense of direction, it brings out an inner urgency and immediacy, which allows me to focus for two or three years on a single body of work.
Website: hermanaguirre.org
Instagram: @herman.aguirre.35
You can view Herman’s work at his group show opening on Friday, July 10, 2026 from 5-8pm at Chicago Artists Coalition alongside Diana Noh and Skyler Simpson, curated by Rachel Dukes.