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Evoking a society undergoing profound changes, Reno Hébert's art propels the viewer into a spatio- temporal spiral through pictorial works featuring a plethora of characters inspired by different eras, customs, and cultures. This unique vision of humanity echoes the painter's childhood memories and his travels to the four corners of the globe.

 

The artist's postmodern character is based on his fascination with the masterpieces of the Renais- sance and the Baroque, which he explores and reinvents by substituting their main compositional elements with burlesque or heroic characters. These characters, often inspired by significant encoun- ters in the painter's life, are staged using a sort of empirical fabulation with cathartic effects. 

 

His paintings, rich in metaphorical and allegorical elements, inspire reflection on the values and ob- sessions that govern our world. On one hand, the world of humans is represented by proletarians or marginalized individuals who find themselves oppressed, manipulated, or uprooted in a fantastical and timeless setting. Their eyes, partially obscured by chiaroscuro, recall the absent gaze of a drea- mer. They are usually in possession of unusual objects or antique toys that evoke a phantasmagori- cal universe they aspire to but do not know how to access.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, the world of the sacred is embodied by mythological or religious beings who find themselves in an enchanting place where they can feast in a context of freedom and total harmony with animals and lush nature. Unlike the humans whom the artist portrays with warm colors, the divinities appear in cooler tones to emphasize their distance from the human condition.

 

Between these two opposing worlds, the painter has reserved a space to bring robots to life, taking on the role of automatons. They can be found in all spheres of society, appearing as both nobles and peasants. In either case, they evoke the specter of repetition and the intrinsic nature of humani- ty to fall into the infernal cycle of eternal recurrence.

 

The painter thus explores the range of his techniques and the possibilities offered by the color wheel to infuse a unique spirit and personality into the protagonists of his universe. He draws inspiration from his numerous travels to tell stories and incorporates multiple visual details and a color palette imbued with exoticism, adding a voice to the scenery and enriching the viewer's interpretive expe- rience with a multitude of possibilities.