Tag: oliver hibert

Next show: Vivid Visions at Compound Gallery

June 5th, 2012 | No Comments

vivid visions coming to compound gallery in portland, oregon
A vivid vision: One of my newest paintings, which remains untitled, might just be showing in Portland this summer.


An extremely bright spot in my summer will be my involvement in Vivid Visions, a group art show curated by my great friend and fellow artist Oliver Hibert.

What makes this show such a bright spot? The seven artists in Vivid Visions use amped-up, fluorescent paint-powered palettes. Hanging our work together in one room is a gargantuan guarantee to make eyeballs melt!

Vivid Visions will open August 2, 2012 at Compound Gallery, which is located in downtown Portland, Oregon. The six other artists participating in Vivid Visions are Buff Monster, Jesse Hibert, Oliver Hibert, Spencer Hibert, Martin Ontiveros, and Pinky.


Oliver Hibert in Java Magazine

March 12th, 2011 | No Comments

It’s not too often when a good friend of mine has a great profile in a respected local magazine. And it’s even more infrequent for someone to call me amazing.

On those grounds alone, I absolutely must share with you an article about my friend Oliver Hibert — a feature piece in this month’s edition of Java Magazine.

Oliver and I showed together considerably between 2002 and 2004, including highly memorable exhibitions at monorchid Gallery in downtown Phoenix and Phoenix Art Museum. As part of an art collective, we called ourselves the TRA25 Capsule. On this topic — found on page 10) — Oliver graciously mentions me and our past collaborations — to my pleasant surprise. (Thank you, Oliver.)

Spanning four pages, the article discusses Oliver’s impressive illustration portfolio (including shoes for Nike and snowboards for a well-known snowboard brand, for example), his artistic influences, and his uncanny style of “surreal contemporized pop psychedelia.”

Congratulations, Oliver! Awesome show! Great job!


Solo Scottsdale art show to open April 1

February 13th, 2010 | No Comments

I have some super-exciting news to share with you: This April I shall be having my first solo art show in more than three years — and it shall be a Scottsdale art show, in downtown Scottsdale’s Marshall Way art gallery district, no less. For me, this is a dream come true; I have always wanted to find a way into the Scottsdale market, but the parameters never seemed right.

The venue for this Scottsdale art show will be Soyal, at 4200 N. Marshall Way. Opening night is Thursday, April 1. The show will continue through the end of month, although we’re still deciding upon an end date. What’s more, this will be Soyal’s grand-opening show.

Plans have materialized very quickly. My longtime friend Spencer Hibert (brother of Oliver Hibert, with whom I’ve shown many times) called me Wednesday afternoon to invite me to have the show. Because this will be the gallery’s first exhibition, I was tremendously honored to be the first artist in the gallery’s lineup.

Up until that point, Spencer and I had been collaborating off and on for months on a mural for an art gallery / videogame arcade / vegan donut shop that he wanted to start. See sketches for the mural. As fate would have it, a bigger and brighter opportunity presented itself in downtown Scottsdale. At Soyal, Spencer and business partner Emmett Potter will be exhibiting emerging artists from around the world, bringing work to Scottsdale that metropolitan Phoenix has not yet witnessed in person.

What does Soyal mean? As Spencer explains, Soyal is the Hopi term for a yearly solstice celebration in which a party is thrown to distract the plumed snake from swallowing the sun. “It symbolizes a new beginning of growth. And that is exactly what I want to bring to Scottsdale … to bring something new to the scene,” he writes.

As for me, I’m still trying out names for the Scottsdale art show, and deciding upon how I want to lay it out. “Circles with Corners,” what I called my Fall 2009 collection, is up for consideration. So is “Face the Future” and “Exact and Intact.” Plus, I have quite a bit of wall space to work with, so I’d like to take advantage of that, and make an immersive experience for the viewer. I want to go beyond rectangles and squares on a wall. Then again, I have just under seven weeks to pull this off, so I have to be realistic about my goals.

As things develop, I’ll be posting updates to this space. Be sure to sign up for blog updates if you’re interested in receiving them.


Pride for my friends

February 12th, 2009 | No Comments

Pardon me while I brag about a friend; I’m very impressed with this. So writes Jesse “Arbito” Hibert on arbito.com:

“Several months ago I was approached by Nike to design a psychedelic illustration that would be used to wrap around a special limited-edition set of Danny Kass Nike Zoom Force 1 snowboarding boots. Nike liked the design so much they expanded my design to include a Jacket, shirt, posters, and an animated video.”

I therefore invite you check out the video based on Arbito’s utterly fantastic work:



Somewhere between Tom Wesselman and Peter Max: On another Hibert-related note, I’d like to share with you my gratitude for something my friend Oliver Hibert (Jesse’s cousin) was responsible for. In issue X of Beautiful Decay magazine, Oliver is featured in a four-page spread (pages 40 – 43). When asked “What other artists influence or inspire your style, Oliver discusses his family members (Jesse, his sister-in-law Snaggs Hibert, and his brother Spencer Hibert), then adds (emphasis mine):

“Some of my other favorite artists include Keiichi Tanaami, Guy Peellaert, Henry Darger, Tom Wesselman, Grant Wiggins, Heinz Edelmann, Peter Max, Dali, Roger Dean, [and] Eduardo Paolozzi, to name a handful.”

Oliver, I hope you know how much that means so much to me. Thank you.


Painting on a Friday afternoon

March 30th, 2008 | 2 Comments

Lots of cool art happened and good laughs were had on Friday when I paid a visit on my old friends Oliver and Spencer Hibert.

Because we don’t hang out nearly enough, we’ve decided to try to get together to paint / draw / doodle / hang out whenever convenient. I think I painted 12 hours on Friday: five before I went over to Spencer’s and seven when I was there.

One of the things I was working on was this pattern painting (shown at right), which is almost done. I had no plan for which color combination to use, so I laid out a few choices and had my friends choose for me. (Have to leave some room for randomness!)

Originally Oliver picked out orange, brown and light blue; but after I explained that I’ve used that combo far too many times, I switched it up to red, brown, and light blue. Long story short, it turned out to be an eyesore, in a good way.

spencer hibertoliver hibert
Spencer at left, Oliver at right, refusing to pose for the camera.


But it was really good to get caught up with Oliver and Spencer, bringing our energy together. Oliver and I have been through so much together — highs (Arizona Biennials) and lows (the disintegration of The TRA25 Capsule experiment) — and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Spencer better. Our work has evolved into very different spaces over the past two or three years, but we’ve only learned from that.

It was all high comedy, punctuated by pizza from Hungry Howie’s. (Q.: “What’s for dinner?” A.: “Any flyers with discounts hanging on the doorknob?”) Just kind of underscores how important it is for artists to have other artists as friends. Especially here in the outskirts of metropolitan Phoenix, where the culture for art is pretty … well … alienating.

One of the things we talked about was originality … how almost impossible it is to do something absolutely new anymore. Why burn yourself out trying to be new? Instead, just be yourself, and make what you like.

Can’t wait to get back together with them again, which may happen Tuesday evening.