Carmen Herrera is an abstract, minimalist artist, born in Havana and who lived in New York City from the mid-1950s until her death in 2022. Her work often explores the balance between symmetry and asymmetry within her crisp geometric style, with compositions highlighting her sharp sense of spatial interaction and using contrasting colors to enhance the visual impact. Herrera herself described her artistic journey as one of simplification, continually striving to strip down to what is essential in her work.

Originally trained as an architect in Havana between 1938 and 1939, Herrera saw drawing as a fundamental part of her artistic process. Throughout her life, she developed a meticulous three-step method for her paintings. Initially, she would create rough sketches using rulers, pencils, and colored markers on gridded paper. These sketches would then be transformed into detailed paintings on paper using acrylic, where she refined the shapes and colors into final designs. Some of these paintings were later enlarged onto canvases, while others were further altered in terms of color, structure, and orientation.