Atelier · No. IV · Est. MMXIX
Raíces y Alas
Rooted in who I am · Free to transform
Transforming waste into visual poetry — sculpture and collage drawn from pressed leaves, salvaged paper, copper, and gold leaf.
The Atelier
On gathering, pressing, and gilding the discarded.
— V.H.
I am , a Mexican artist born in Veracruz. My work emerges from the meeting point of memory, nature, and transformation.
Five years ago, I moved to Canada. It was here that my creative process took on a new dimension. Being far from my roots led me to reinterpret my identity through art, finding beauty in what many would consider waste.
I mainly work with recycled materials and organic elements — textured surfaces, flowers, branches, and repurposed objects that come back to life on the canvas. Each piece is an intimate exploration of the feminine, the natural, and the emotional, where fragility and strength exist in balance.
“Raíces y Alas”
is the essence of my work — staying rooted in who I am while evolving, transforming, and expanding. Roots that hold me to Veracruz; wings that let me become something new.
My work is not meant to be only observed, but felt. It is an invitation to reconnect with what matters, to find meaning in the everyday, and to recognize that beauty can emerge even from what was once forgotten.
Origin
Studio
The Featured Work
A portrait of skin as landscape — where every tone, every mark, is not a flaw to be hidden but a season to be worn. Built in layered relief from reclaimed paper, gilded leaf, and pressed bloom, she wears her difference the way a garden wears its colours: openly, and without apology.
The butterfly at her eye is the work's quiet thesis — transformation as identity, fragility held in the same hand as strength. Beauty here is not uniform. It is the whole, varied, living truth of a face.
Series
Medium
Edition
The Folio
A gathering of recent pieces from the studio archive.
Each piece is a reflection of transformation, memory, and connection with nature.
Mixed media & relief on canvas
The signature work of the Beyond the Skin series. A reflection on identity, beauty, and individuality — skin rendered as living landscape, every tone and mark a season worn openly. It invites us to look beyond appearance and recognise the richness of the person within.
2026
11 × 14 in
Mixed media, reclaimed paper & gold leaf
An homage to Frida Kahlo's defiant tenderness — a portrait of pain transfigured into adornment, built from salvaged paper and gilded leaf.
2026
20 × 24 in
Mixed media & gold leaf on canvas
A modern reliquary of feminine power. Gold leaf and salvaged ornament crown a face that holds millennia of remembered strength.
2026
18 × 24 in
Hand embroidery & pressed bloom
Hand-embroidered and layered with pressed flower, an autumnal portrait of a woman at ease in her own changing season.
2026
12 × 15 in
Hand embroidery, salvaged buttons & thread
Salvaged buttons and thread compose a figure half-bloom, half-woman — a meditation on what we are told to hide and choose to wear.
2026
12 × 15 in
Mixed media & relief on canvas
Hummingbird, gilded butterflies, and pressed bloom drift across washes of pink and turquoise — a layered reminder to let your dreams be your wings.
2026
24 × 30 in
Hand embroidery & mixed media, framed
Hand-embroidered monarchs mid-flight, framed like a captured migration — fragility rendered with the patience of stitch.
2026
12 × 15 in
Mixed media & relief on canvas
A face at rest beneath a butterfly's wing — the quiet thesis that fragility and freedom are the same gesture.
2026
20 × 20 in
Mixed media, found imagery & gold leaf
Found imagery, gold leaf, and gestural paint collide — nostalgia excavated from a field of texture and salvage.
2026
On request
Mixed media & reclaimed pigment
Concentric mixed-media orbits in reclaimed pigment — order found inside abundance.
2026
24 × 29 in
Reclaimed glass bottle, paint & gold leaf
A discarded bottle reborn in molten golds and shadow — light caught and held in reclaimed glass.
2026
Reclaimed glass bottle & mixed media
Sea-glass blues drift over a reclaimed vessel, sealed with a single word: love.
2026
Reclaimed glass bottle & painted bloom
A bottle overgrown with painted bloom — a sealed garden that needs no water to flower.
2026
Reclaimed glass bottle & mixed media
An agave-spirit bottle reimagined with sculpted blooms and butterflies in blue and gold — wings rising from the vessel like a sealed garden in flight.
2026
Reclaimed glass bottle & mixed media
A golden agave bottle adorned with sculpted ivory butterflies and clusters of soft pink blooms — a tender swarm rising along the glass like whispered spring.
2026
Available Work
Each piece is unique and made from recycled materials.
One-of-a-kind sculpture and collage made from recycled and gathered materials. Each piece is unique, signed, and ready to live in your space.
Bespoke works created for you — built around colors, materials, or a memory you wish to preserve. A simple, guided conversation from idea to finished piece.
Small-run prints and folios assembled from studio archives, limited to twenty-four hands.
Tell me which piece speaks to you, or share the idea behind your commission. I reply by hand within three days.
Beyond the Studio
Community gatherings, exhibitions, and shared making.
Viridiana Herrada J. occasionally participates in creative workshops, community exhibitions, and artistic experiences focused on mixed media, texture, and transformation through recycled materials.
A space where creativity, sustainability, and transformation come together through mixed media art.
Community Art Exhibition • Ontario, Canada
Exhibition at the Refugee Centre in Canada
The Process
How forgotten materials become meaningful art.
My work begins where most stories end. I gather what has been left behind and give it a second life through texture, organic elements, and slow, patient hands. Every piece is an act of transformation.
I collect what others overlook — fallen leaves, branches, salvaged paper, scraps of fabric, glass softened by the sea.
Each material tells me what it wants to become. I press, dry, and let texture, color, and form lead the composition.
Through layering, gilding, and slow assembly, the discarded becomes story — a piece that carries memory, nature, and feeling.
Voices
Letters from those who have lived with the work.
“Viridiana's pieces hold an extraordinary stillness. They feel like objects rescued from another century, and yet they are entirely of this one.”
Curator, Museo de Arte Vivo
“We commissioned a piece for the lobby. Guests stop. They lean in. They whisper. That is the rarest thing in a public space.”
Hotel Casa Mireles, Oaxaca
“It is rare to encounter an artist whose process is as quietly devotional as the work itself. A true craftswoman.”
Collector, Toronto
Contact
For purchases, commissions, exhibitions and collaborations — send a message and I’ll reply within three days.