biography
Jonathan Herbert (b. 1952, New York City) explores the nonverbal relationship between cosmology and consciousness. He creates unique, intuitive formulations of water-based paint using acrylic and urethane media made on the spot while creating the works. He explores the visual nature of creative inspiration via intuition. These works examine the richness of the present moment while referring to a concurrent interest in the expression of the past—his traumatic experiences and resulting emotions.
Much of Herbert’s work has been informed by his extremely abusive childhood and the unsurprisingly drug- and alcohol-ridden years of his life before 1986 when he was struck sober in a white light experience. His experiences as a night shift cab driver in bankrupt New York inspired the years-long body of work Views from a Yellow Cab. He drove a quarter-million miles over five years. This experience provided an important, interesting, uncommon view of humankind.
Herbert received his diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1977. He continued his studies via an Independent Study Award from the Museum School for over a year in Antwerp, Belgium. He began exhibiting in 1978 in Soho and the East Village and has garnered several solo exhibitions. Many of his group shows have been in New York City, including tagging subways and walls in the East Village of the 1970s.
In New York, shortly after the Apple Lisa was released in 1983, Herbert was one of the early adopters of digital art as a creative tool; his first sole proprietorship in the field was named Computer Illustration, which referred to what became a burgeoning industry. During his digital years, Silicon Graphics decorated their entire Seybold Trade Show booth with his work, flew him to San Francisco, and asked him to demonstrate his process during the convention. His digital work has been featured internationally. Herbert, for years, labored lovingly over the creation of digital medical drawings for pharmaceutical books and journals, continuously expanding his education, which fed his fascination with medicine. His work as a digital artist even led to being interviewed on New York’s WPIX television station.
Herbert’s bibliography begins in December 1982, in the regular Cookie Mueller column “Art and About” in Andy Warhol’s Details Magazine. There is also a Jonathan Herbert entry in the Cookie Mueller Encyclopedia. He has been featured in or reviewed in many publications. Portraits of Herbert are in The Night Line by Peter Donahoe and Taxi: The Social History of the New York City Cab Driver. Herbert’s work is in the collection of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Brooklyn Art Library, Pfizer Incorporated, the law firm Kirkland and Ellis, and The Museum of the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana.
Herbert currently lives and works in Sarasota, Florida, where, every day, he struggles to live fully in the face of multiple invisible disabilities, including lymphoma, PTSD, and cognitive impairment, most of which result from 9/11 survivorship.
Portrait of Jonathan Herbert by Virginia Hoffman Photography ©2016 Virginia Hoffman
CURATOR MARK ORMOND ON HERBERT
“When I ask him if he has heroes Herbert tells me that he “likes the cave painters and believes they were shamans.” He also believes in alchemy. In considering Herbert’s work you can see those connections. There is something mystical about his work that is other worldly. It is spiritual in the way it can put you in touch with your soul when you contemplate his art. It can be magical and transformative. Herbert believes that “art puts you in contact with your inner life and takes you to a greater life.” In considering his work, this is possible. Seeing reproductions of his work is a starting point. Being in the presence of the work initiates the journey of discovery. I encourage you to contemplate his work in person.” —Excerpt from an essay by Mark Ormond, Independent curator, art historian, writer, lecturer and consultant in Working Title Magazine.