Hector Sector
Hector Sector is an artist whose practice is defined by material restriction and conceptual openness. Working almost exclusively with cardboard, they use limitation as a way to generate variety rather than repetition. Each piece is treated as an opportunity to test how far the material can be pushed through changes in theme, style, reference, or art-historical dialogue. For them, the appeal lies in avoiding sameness and continually reconfiguring what cardboard can communicate.
A recurring motif in their work is the box head, an anonymous figure that resists fixed identity. The box functions as both a mask and an invitation, allowing the subject to be anyone. This ambiguity aligns with their belief that art should be accessible and relatable, not bound to a single narrative or persona. By withholding identifiable features, they create space for viewers to project their own experiences and interpretations onto the work.
Hector’s influences span multiple movements and approaches. They cite surrealists such as René Magritte, Dada artists like Marcel Duchamp, and pop artists including Roy Lichtenstein as shaping the imagery and conceptual play within their work. However, a pivotal influence came from Dáreece Walker, an artist they knew in college whose cardboard-based drawings addressed the lived realities of Black Americans. Seeing socially charged, technically strong work executed on cardboard shifted Hector’s understanding of what art could be. It dismantled earlier assumptions about acceptable materials and reinforced the idea that meaning does not depend on prestige or convention.
Audience response plays a central role in how Hector understands fulfillment. They describe their most meaningful moments as those when viewers share what they see or feel in the work. Because they do not rely on physical presence or verbal explanation, these exchanges become a form of dialogue. As they put it, “I love having the viewers telling me their experiences and how my art reminded them of it.” For them, that exchange confirms that the work is open rather than exclusionary.
Hector is also candid about the pressures of visibility in digital spaces. Having built a large online following, they have had to confront the tension between personal pace and algorithmic demand. They describe a period of measuring success through views and engagement, which led to burnout and self-doubt when they could not keep up. Re-centering their practice meant returning to a simpler motivation. “The way that I got out of that awful mindset was to remember why I make art in the first place,” they explain. “Because I love it.”
Success, in their view, has little to do with metrics or recognition. They define it as the ability to be satisfied with one’s work while living well alongside it. For emerging artists, their advice is direct: share your work, but love it first. The work should be treated as an extension of the self, something to be celebrated and cared for before it is offered to an audience. That sense of ownership and affection, they believe, is what sustains a practice over time
