Born in Paris, Antoine Heckly was immersed in an art-filled universe from an early age, as his father was an architect and his mother a painter. Sensualist, hedonist, eclectic, and passionate, Antoine Heckly is a self-taught artist. While he was accepted at the Beaux Arts and ESAG Penninghen art school, Heckly preferred the school of the streets and the liberty of numerous trips around the world. He was never one for the constraints of formal education. As early as the age of 12, in the seventh grade, he was sent home from the Lycée Claude Bernard for “propagation of caricatures of a pornographic nature,” as nudes are one of his favorite subjects. Other influences include water effects and the superimposed images of the surrealists. Very figurative, he adores the collages of Pop Art and Dada.one…

Antoine Heckly – Destination Saint Barths

Antoine does not like to be labeled, and morphs easily from one style to another. St Barth, where he first visited in 1981, became his home definitely in 1993. He has painted all aspects of the island, from its small cottages to close ups of windows with views of the sea, the changing skies, and waves in the living room, yet not abandoning nudes, portraits, and landscapes. After 15 years of paintings rich in saturated and contrasting colors that stand as proof to the beauty of the island, plus some major commissions, Heckly’s life took an unexpected turn… A serious illness, major medical treatment, then a strong desire to return to his first loves: collages and water effects, as seen in the new work he contributed to a traveling exhibit, “New Antilles-Guyana Figurative Art In Tribute To Georges Rohner,” seen throughout the Caribbean and in Paris. And still he found time to pick up an old series, started at the age of seven, of painted bubbles. So he is usually working on many different things at the same time. Bubbles, collages, old cottages, nudes, realist and surrealist superimposed images, water effects that ripple between hyperrealism and abstract…

Heckly recently discovered another passion: photography. An additional and different means to express his art and share his take on the world. He takes pictures non-stop. Photos of Saint Barth, behind the scenes at fashion shoots, regattas, and local events, everything that his eye and his lens can transcend into images. Antoine Heckly remains an artist without frontiers, without limits. His style, he really doesn’t have just one…