Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #1 / 1979
from the series “Triangulated Chances”
Drawing, ink on paper, 7″x7″

This was my first attempt to produce drawings using a small table plotter to draw lines in a pattern I had conceived and defined by a short text, a computer program I had written in Basic. Some definitions were randomized and with the same program I produced six little studies in red and black, which I later recognized to be in the style of several pieces by Anni Abers and titled accordingly.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #2 / 1984
Drawing, ink on paper, 8″x8″

Reading Benoit Mandelbrot’s “The Fractal Geometry of Nature” was a powerful inspiration. The geometry of self similarities expanded the analytic resources applicable to drawing. I had embarked in exploring in detail these new possibilities, and was quickly beyond the text. Now endowed with a slightly larger device, I started using good papers, permanent inks and better pens.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #3 / 1985
Drawing, ink on paper, 8″x14″

Now came the time to tame the fractal paradigm and flex it to accomplish my specific goals. Such approach to linear divisions of the plane where reasoning came to conclusions reminding of earlier purely aesthetic researches by the Bauhaus, the Constructivists, de Stilj was exhilarating. I was not discouraged by the idea of being a late follower: I was not, I had my own ways and goals in mind.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #4 / 1985
Drawing, ink on paper, 7″x7″

Short fractal development showing a hand colored division of the plane. These studies where produced by the tools I was building, with the intent to check them and to evolve them, to evolve my own understanding and define the needs for the task at hand. I made hundreds of such studies, which almost never were titled. They were also the visual reward, the answer and the riddle.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #5 / 1986
Drawing, ink on paper, 7″x7″

Fractal development showing a spontaneous and rhythmic division of the plane, provided by a careful selection of the underlying geometries.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #6 / 1986
Drawing, ink on paper, 7″x7″

Short fractal development showing a hand colored division of the plane based on triangular symmetries and expansions. The coloring both underlines and breaks the inherent self similarities.

Jean-Pierre Hébert
Slide #7 / 1987
Drawing, ink on paper, 7″x7″

Fractal development plane covering, binary division of the plane and gray effects. The elegance of the paradigm is that the concept of a piece can be described in a very compact manner, whereby a rather short piece of text will encode a multitude of geometrical elements and provide for perfectly accurate and complex pen work.