Today we’d like to introduce you to Antoine de Villiers.
Hi Antoine, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Potchefstroom, a small town in the northern part of South Africa. After school, I started studying Graphic Communication but in frustration got on a plane to backpack Europe and the UK. I earned my way forward bathing the disabled and doing marketing on the street corners of London. I found the hours in Tate Modern or the Louvre more stimulating than graphic communication.
After two years in the UK, I started exploring the US, I traveled to 46 states as well as Canada and Mexico. I studied Marble Sculpting in Colorado and Yoga in Illinois while exhibiting my work in numerous shows throughout the UK, the US, and South Africa.
In 2014, I moved to India where I lived for five years while teaching art to the marginalized women and children of India’s underworld –from the brothels of Old Delhi to Maharashtra’s slums. 2020, I moved back to the US and opened my studio just outside of Savannah, GA where I currently live with my husband, two boys, and an array of rescued pets.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have most certainly been endless struggles as I believe there often is with most things worthwhile. I was still in high school when I moved out on my own and red-eye shifts to make ends meet. In London, I did part-time marketing (while working on an exhibition) in some of the most dangerous areas; from Brixton to Camden.
For many years, I lived on coffee alone and am no stranger to hitchhiking or exchanging paintings for rent. Art critic Roberta Smith said ‘Only be an artist if you cannot be anything else and I cannot agree more. I believe almost any other career would have been easier but I certainly have to create and no matter what the future holds, I always will be.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I focus on figurative oil paintings and drawings exploring the emotional complexities of the human subject. I have dabbled in metal, marble, and currently cement sculpture but I always return to oils. Although the majority of my work is nude, I don’t really consider them as nudes but rather the most honest, raw, and vulnerable way to express an emotion.
I’m probably most proud of my work in Asia. During my five years in India, I taught art to marginalized women and girls from the brothels of Old Delhi to the slums of Maharashtra. In Delhi, my art classes branched out to skill-building and art therapy. I also got evolved in nutrition and the launch of a computer center sponsored by the British Embassy.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I often collaborate with art models and I am very interested in collaborative work with other artists in public spaces. My work is available on my website, AntoineArt.com as well as in Kobo Gallery in Savannah, GA, Sarah Jessica Fine Arts in Provincetown, MA, and Jaarsma Gallery in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Contact Info:
- Email: Antoine@AntoineArt.com
- Website: AntoineArt.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AntoineArt
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AntoineArtStudio
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineArt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AntoineArt/
