Lara Cantu-Hertzler

Artist Statement

My artistic influences—including Claude Monet, Joan Mitchell, and Mark Rothko—are of great importance to me. Like these late masters, I use color to capture light, space, and mood. My paint application varies from thin, transparent, watercolor-like washes to thick, opaque layers. I paint subjects such as self-portraits, Philadelphia architecture, landscapes, and flowers, using personal photographs as references—blended with memory and enhanced by imagination. There’s a journalistic quality to my paintings: “a day in the life,” filtered through heightened color and space, eschewing pure representation and moving into expressive, impressionistic abstraction.

Bio

Lara Cantu-Hertzler, a Northwest Philadelphia native, spent her formative years in Germantown, moving to Chestnut Hill at the age of ten. She graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, earned a Certificate in Painting and BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. She attended artist residency programs at Vermont Studio Center in 2014, on full scholarship, and Ballinglen in Northwest Ireland in 2018. Lara has had numerous solo exhibitions, including shows at High-wire Gallery, Abington Art Center, and Allens Lane Art Center. She was a longtime participant in the Rittenhouse Square Fine Arts Show and Chestnut Hill Fall for the Arts Festival, and her work has been featured in group shows at the Chestnut Hill Gallery, Chestnut Hill Academy, and Wayne Art Center. Lara currently has an art Studio in Germantown where she also teaches painting.