HERA
Coming from a half-Pakistani, half-German background, therefore having been brought up half-Muslim and half-Catholic, Jasmin Siddiqui, aka HERA, knew quite a lot about ethical differences and complications even before elementary school. But she did not know how to deal with all the different perspectives until much later in her life when she discovered graffiti. Education-wise, the very shy girl who was born 1981 in Frankfurt, Germany, got a scholarship to spend her junior year at Venice High School in Los Angeles, a city she still visits once a year. She later went to study Graphic Design in Wiesbaden, Germany – back in 2000 a highly frequented meting point for international graffiti artists. By the time of her graduating with a diploma in 2007, Jasmin had already made a name for herself in the urban subculture she really loved, calling herself HERA after the highest Goddess in Greek mythology.This was the necessary alter-ego, the matching super-hero-persona for a talented but thoroughly timid girl. In 2004 HERA met AKUT at a graffiti festival in Spain, and formed the crew Herakut, which still exists today and paints murals across the world. Her work has been featured in numerous books and magazines, blogs and television shows. It has been used as inspiration for countless tattoos and artwork by art students who have read her books “Herakut – The Perfect Merge” and “After The Laughter”. It amazes her, even today, that crazy twists of fate have allowed her, the torn little self-destructive kid, to share her thoughts with strangers. She believes that graffiti saved her life. And she teaches it to any child who needs a cure from feeling invisible.
Vertical Gallery presented a very special solo show "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERA?", in July 2016, and featured a solo exhibition at the Moniker Art Fair in Brooklyn in May 2018.
HERA "Don’t Envy One Immortality. It’s No Fun to Forever be Watching How You People Behave"
HERA Don’t Envy One Immortality. It’s No Fun to Forever be Watching How You P...HERA "It’s Not Just Inside My Head"
HERA It’s Not Just Inside My Head, 2018 Pencil on Paper 11 ¾ x 16 ½ in., fram...HERA "She Was a Model of Disaster with a Heart of Revolution"
HERA She Was a Model of Disaster with a Heart of Revolution, 2018 Pencil-Pape...HERA "Illustrating the thought of Amjad (9 years)"
Hera Illustrating the thought of Amjad (9 years), 2018 Mixed media paper coll...HERA "Don’t you forget this kitty has claws"
Hera Don’t you forget this kitty has claws, 2019 Pencil on paper 11 ¾ x 16 ½ ...HERA "In her dreams she was forever floating with the inventors…"
Hera In her dreams she was forever floating with the inventors…, 2018 Mixed m...HERA "At times our differences were far less important than our need for family"
Hera At times our differences were far less important than our need for famil...HERA "My Babies Don’t Look Like Your Babies But I Love Them Oh So Much"
HERA My Babies Don’t Look Like Your Babies But I Love Them Oh So Much, 2018 P...HERA "The scariest thing this Halloween was…"
Hera The scariest thing this Halloween was…, 2018 Mixed media paper collage o...HERA "We’re All Made of Stars"
HERA We’re All Made of Stars, 2018 Pencil-Spray Paint on Paper 12 5/8 x 11 5/...HERA "Never too meek to matter"
Hera Never too meek to matter, 2019 Mixed media paper collage on cardboard 8 ...