(Eye See You, Angelo Madrigale, December 2017)
There is a kind of magnetizing cognitive dissonance in the art of Oliver Hibert. His colors are striking and psychedelic, but they complement skulls, melting and dripping people and disembodied eyes. His poster work is like The Brady Bunch gone terribly wrong. Scenes of seeming carnage are framed with rainbows. Flowers form skulls. His work is nonetheless joyous.
He has several favorite elements that he reuses and repurposes and recycles: the perfectly round disembodied eye, nude women with perfectly round breasts and streams from their crotches, wavy rainbows, and drippings from just about anything. They can be endlessly combined and elaborated to stunning visual effect.
Hibert is the genuine article; he dresses and lives his artwork. About the only biographical detail he deems noteworthy is that he is the product of Jehovah’s Witnesses. They divorced when he was 12, and he suddenly discovered the universe. He now lives on farm in Arizona, with 1000 peacocks.
The artwork is pop, psychedelic, top 40 and sexual fantasy. All in one. He draws by hand and then colors it in. He is self taught. Oliver Hibert is a very young man, so there’s a lot more coming.
David Wineberg