Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce five new paintings by acclaimed Los Angeles painter Todd Hebert.
In this series of work, Hebert uses his signature airbrush technique to juxtapose bubbles and snowmen in contrasting planes of perspective. He positions these precisely formed characters in unpopulated backyards that are “too strangely lit, too moody and impossible, to reflect the real world,” as Jessica Hough from the Aldrich Museum muses, “we naturally want to bring the image into sharp focus so that we can see all of what we think is there. But then we realize that the beauty and appeal of the paintings is in part due to this gossamer fog that cloaks the landscape.”
These pictures display images traditionally associated with whimsy and childhood play, allusions to the sublime pleasures of suburban life. However, Hebert purposely leaves them void of reference to nostalgia. He uses elements found in cinematic photography to bring viewers into the paintings and across their surfaces, creating succinct narratives of looking and seeing. While reading like elaborately staged film stills, these scenes remind one of Los Angeles legend John Baldessari’s conceptual based paintings that play with the nature of meaning and notions of art theory.
Hebert holds a BFA from the University of North Dakota and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Receiving the Emerging Artist Award from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 2005, his work is included in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States, including the Weisman Foundation, The Cartin Collection, The Nueberger Berman Collection and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hebert lives and works in Los Angeles.
