Untitled (1997-98) at the Ikon Gallery. Courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co New York

The work of artist Arturo Herrera is being shown in two separate exhibitions in Cambridge and Birmingham.

They are the first major UK solo shows from the Venezuelan-born artist and display the diversity of his work, with collage, photography, sculpture, work on paper, wall hangings and painting.

His show at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery includes his first ever animation piece, projected across three of the venue’s walls and together with recent and older works provides a detailed insight into the artist’s work to date.

Still for the animation Les Noces, showing at Ikon. Courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co New York

Herrera, who is based in New York and Berlin, mixes popular childhood imagery with elements of modernist abstraction and surrealism, creating hybrid images, often through collage.

The centrepiece is the animation Les Noces, which transplants his collage processes into the moving image. It takes photographic and drawn details from existing works, cut and spliced to create a dense, black and white film set to the music of Stravinsky, reminiscent of Disney’s animated film Fantasia.

Other works in the Birmingham exhibition include delicate paper filigree, sculptures and large laser-cut felt hangings.

22DF2 (2006), on display at the Ketttle's Yard show. Courtesy the artist

Herrera has created a large wall drawing in the first floor gallery, using a pin-prick and powder paint technique to create a dusty, ephemeral effect.

Over in Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard provides also includes a cross-section of Herrera’s work comprising collage, painting, photography and sculpture.

The core of the exhibition, however, is a series of 80 black and white ‘photographic abstractions’, made by in 2004 by reframing details from collages and drawings.

Untitled 28 at Kettle's Yard. Courtesy the artist

As well as using images he has found, often from children’s books and cartoons, Herrera also produced his own images for the collages, painting and drawing on hundreds of sheets of paper that he cut and merged so that the printed and painted marks are hard to tell apart.

Recognisable images have been broken up and combined with abstract drips and smears to produce part-drawn, part-cut compositions that are reminiscent of the efforts to tap into the subconscious by the 20th century surrealists.

Both exhibitions are free and run until May 20 2007.