Edward Hebert

Edward R. Hebert, New Orleans, LA

May 10, 2022

A native of New Orleans, Edward Hebert has been active in the New Orleans art community for over 30 years. His academic background is in painting, photography, and sociology, and he attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Art from 1977 to 1980 in the Visual Arts Program and earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans in 1986. Hebert continues to study drawing, painting, and art history.

Throughout history, movements arise as artists respond to what they know and experience. Hebert has been interested in and inspired by the ongoing dialogue and progress of art. His art ancestors are Gustave Courbet, Peter Beard, Oscar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Alice Neel,

Lucien Freud and, more recently, Austen Osman Spare and Hilma Af Klint.   The conceptual source and theme of his paintings originate in his experiences of childhood trauma, as well as political and social issues including queerness, racial inequality, accurate representation, and gender bias. Central to his process is “sympathetic magic”, an anthropological term referring to a technique that manifests one’s will by describing a facsimile of a desired outcome. Therefore, Hebert’s painting is inextricably linked to the sympathetic imagery witnessed in cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and pre-Columbian icons.

Hebert has created images since his early childhood. It is the one thing that provides him with an anchor and a focus. At times, it did in fact save him from bad influences by fostering self-worth and self-respect.

This current project involves a concept developed by Austen Osman Spare and exhibits Hebert’s continuing creation of images, search for knowledge, and focus on art as an agent for healing.

Love of Men is a Sigil painting that works as sympathetic magic. The Sigil process I am using is borrowed from Austen Osman Spare. Spare was an artist who studied metaphysics, psychology and created a method using Sigils to manifest desires into reality. The calligraphy on the piece are love poems regarding Love of Men. This painting honors love of men as well as my personal relationship.