Viewing Erik Madigan Heck: The Tapestry at Sotheby’s

Twenty-one photographs, six paintings – and one very large tapestry. Award-winning artist Erik Madigan Heck is best known for his photography, but following a period of deep personal reflection and evolution, during which Heck looked to the historic tapestries of Impressionists, he began to reimagine what his pictures could do – and what form they might take. The result is The Tapestry, a selling exhibition that will be unveiled tomorrow at Sotheby’s.

“Old tapestries and figurative oil paintings provide me with a huge source of inspiration, and pushed me beyond photography into other artistic media”, Heck explains. “Most of my favourite artists paint from photographs, and I realized this whole time I’ve tried to do the opposite— make paintings out of photographs. So, for some of these works, I wanted to explore that idea in greater depth, through photographing details of historic paintings, re-colouring them, printing the results on canvas, and painting over them. I’m still tethered to photography, but this is an attempt to move beyond just photography.”

It isn’t the first time Heck has looked to other, more classical mediums for inspiration. His mother was a painter, and instilled in Heck a passion for the art form. As a child, Heck would spend countless hours visiting museums with his mother – and this latest body of work recalls the vitality and thrill of those visits at an impressionable age. Radiant and evocative, the works bend photographic and artistic genres into a radiant visual style that is uniquely Heck’s own.