Todd Hebert: A Survey

October 28 – January 20, 2013

Born in Valley City in 1972, Todd Hebert spent his early years in McHenry, North Dakota. His father, a high school teacher, moved the family to Dickinson in 1980 to accept the job at Dickinson High School coaching basketball and teaching social studies.

Todd played football, basketball, and baseball. He also drew and painted and took art classes from Michael Dunn, a wildlife watercolorist. According to Hebert, “Dunn made watercolors by carefully observing the outdoor world. He taught me to observe and work with great precision, something that is still important in my paintings and drawings.

Hebert received his BFA from the University of North Dakota, and a MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Hebert states, “After graduating with a BFA in painting and drawing from UND, I applied to the Rhode Island School of Design. I saw that North Dakota artist Nancy Friese was teaching there and thought I might get in.” And he did. He graduated with his MFA in 1998, the same year he accepted a year-long fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.

A second invitation followed from the prestigious Core Residency Program at the Glassell School of Art where he spent two years in a postgraduate residency for art critics and visual artists. It was in Houston that he met his wife, Lillie. His career took off with invitations to show in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. In 2005, Connecticut’s Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art gave him its prestigious Emerging Artist Award. Today, he is represented by Devin Borden Gallery in Houston and the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City. His art, however, stays grounded in the mundane, the ordinary existence of North Dakotans.

Installation Images