Artist Blog

Jean-Pierre Hébert is an independent artist that lives and works in Santa Barbara, California. He is a pioneer in the field of computer art and has been working with algorithmic art as well as mixed media since the 1970’s. Hébert was awarded a Pollock-Krasner foundation grant in 2006 and a David Bermant foundation grant in 2008-09. He had a solo show recently called drawing with the mind at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts forum and is currently showing collections at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art in Chicago and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Algorithmic art is mostly visual art generated by algorithms. It is a subset of generative art and is normally always executed by a computer. Hébert works both with the computer but also with mixed media. His works primary medium is on paper, mostly drawings, and some prints. He has also worked with films, steel, copper plates, wood, sand, and even air and water. “Hébert prefers to work on paper however he also is out to explore all possibilities of drawing, from the largest, most detailed pieces to the smallest, simplest sketches and cartoons” (1). This particular image is an algorithmic work of art that is drawn by hand rather than created on the computer or through a computer program. Laque Noire (1990) is a pen and ink drawing on paper that is in a collection of digital works started by the Block Museum. The image is meant to look digitally created, however Hébert created this image strictly from drawing.

I find this absolutely amazing, Hébert was one of the first few algorithmic artists in the world, however back in the 1970’s before computers they did all they drawings by hand. And still to this day he creates some of his artwork by hand, even though it appears to have been digitally created. Normally this is not the type of art I am into, but I just find this fascinating. Out of all the artists in the Paul Hertz’s reading Jean-Pierre Hébert was certainly my favorite. How they created digital art before personal computers were so readily available, I don’t know it is truly amazing.