It’s refreshing—even radical—to encounter someone like Veronica Herber. 

Herber’s story isn’t one of youthful stardom but rather of a woman who - in the quiet of her forties - dared to revisit a long-shelved dream. After years as an entrepreneur and executive coach - even a band manager - she arrived at a crossroads, staring into the uncharted territory of a career in the arts. 

“I’d spent years supporting others,” she reflects. “Then I thought, Am I allowed to just do this for myself?”

Such a decision, of course, didn’t come lightly. Her first steps towards art school felt less like a triumphant march and more like a guilty tiptoe - a feeling she describes as “bunking real life,” as if rebelling against the “sensible” path she’d followed for so long. 

Family history loomed large; in her world, art was respected but rarely rewarded, sometimes even discouraged. Her father’s memory lingered in particular - an accomplished but financially struggling painter, a Dutch migrant whose creative life cast a long shadow. His experience had nudged her towards safer ground: first graphic design, and later the corporate arenas of coaching and music management. 

Yet the pull toward art never truly faded, and, at last, Herber granted herself the permission she’d craved for decades.

When she finally enrolled in art school (now in her mid-forties), the experience was one of startling contrasts. She was used to work that was, in her words, “tangible, a world of measurable impacts”, where others flourished under her guidance. Art, by comparison, felt elusive - its contributions harder to quantify. 

“It didn’t feel like I was contributing in the same way,” she explains, voicing that familiar doubt most of us have had at one time or another about the invisible labours of creativity.

But art - as it has a habit of doing - began to work on her. 

She found herself creating vast outdoor installations - enormous and absorbing - and soon her sense of “contribution” took on a new form; something beyond herself, felt in the quiet affirmations of others. 

In time, her practice evolved, shifting from bold, outward-facing installations to smaller, more intimate pieces. 

She fell in love with the ritualistic simplicity of Japanese washi tape, working in two dimensions in a manner reminiscent of minimalist greats like Agnes Martin. In this medium, she found a new approach, less about proving herself and more about an inward gaze - a practice of “honouring life,” as she put it, bringing forth beauty for beauty’s own sake. 

“The joy of making art,” she opines, “is bringing something new into the world that wasn’t there before. There’s a kind of aliveness in creating on the edge of something unknown. It’s incredibly fulfilling.”

If Herber has a philosophy, it’s that art is a declaration of life’s vitality - a reminder to avoid the “mundane things that kill your soul.” For Herber, this approach isn’t a lofty anti-capitalist stance but something deeply personal.

After the passing of her partner, Derek Brown (lead singer and founder of dDub), her understanding of life’s brevity sharpened. “When you lose someone you love,” she states, “all the petty things just fall away. Life becomes extra precious. Don’t waste it on things that drain you.”

It would be too easy to cast Herber as merely an emblem of “second acts” or “late bloomers.” Hers is not so much a redemptive narrative as it is a powerful testimony to endurance, a reminder that fulfilment often comes from navigating uncertainty. 

She makes no grand statements about finding success but speaks plainly to those who feel stifled: “You do need a certain amount of recklessness and rebelliousness.” 

Her art - spare, deliberate, marked by patience - mirrors her journey. Veronica Herber embodies the notion that art is as much about process as product, a philosophy that refuses to squeeze life into tidy categories of “productive” and “unproductive.” Instead, it lives in the spaces between: a drawing not of the thing itself, but of the shadows it casts.

For those feeling trapped in lives that don’t quite feel their own, who sense their creative callings tugging them in directions neither practical nor profitable, Herber offers a simple refrain. 

“It’s never too late to follow your creative path,” she says. “Just keep going.” 

In her life and work, there’s an invitation - to embrace art as an act of resilience, a salve against mundanity, and, above all, a testament to the sheer courage of living creatively.

Veronica Herber's latest exhibition, Making My Way Home is on at Melanie Roger Gallery until 7 December, 2024.