Jean-Pierre Hébert: Still plotting after all those years …

  • ©2004, Jean-Pierre Hébert

Artist(s):


Title:


    Still plotting after all those years ...

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2004

Medium:


    Ink on paper (acrylic ink, technical pen and plotter)

Size:


    45 inches x 32 inches

Category:


Artist Statement:


    I draw because I love to draw and always had a passion for drawings. Since the late 1970s, I have been working with the conviction that to gain power and beauty, drawing should become pure mental activity more than gestural skill. I have endeavored to make it so by banning completely the physical side of drawing. I create drawings by writing original code that will define the very concept for each piece. Running this code produces the path that guides the device that actually produces the physical proof on paper with pens, leads, or brushes. My process is thus akin to composing or choreographing or simply … thinking. It starts with the vision of the piece. It continues with the precise anticipation of the imaginary hand motions or the real pencil path implied by the development of the drawing. It ends with a final proof of concept on paper.

    What makes it so rewarding is my continuing fascination with the slow, mesmerizing apparition of each drawing on the paper and the anticipation of witnessing the correct unfolding of the proof. There is also the possible good surprise of a happy “accident,” always tempered by the possible ink failure. Here, everything went wrong for the proofing, so much so that I annotated all the problems by hand afterwards. Nevertheless, I gave the piece a name that marks my attachment to my charming but temperamental plotters.


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