Rémy de Haenen is a French artist, born in Martinique and raised on St. Barth, who lived in the Caribbean islands until the age of 17. Descendant of a family who came to the Islands centuries ago, his childhood was deeply marked and influenced by his freedom to come and go as he pleased, the cultural diversity of the Islands, the ocean, and the colors of his world—with a strong magical component. He is convinced that we never leave childhood, that we keep it deep inside ourselves, and that we only start believing in reality—or what we think is reality.

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When he was 17 years old, Rémy moved to Paris to study Mathematics and Engineering, and afterwards, in the 1960s, to New York City, where he attended New York University and the Art Students League. In New York, he met Salvador Dalí, his wife Gala, and other artists who were very close to Andy Warhol.

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After an active corporate and entrepreneurial life, he currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his studio is located. In the last 12 years, Rémy has developed a serious and formal approach to his artistic search in painting and installations, always guided by the memories and influences of the Islands where he spent his youth.

In Rémy’s works, there is an emotional communion between the sky, clouds (he is an experienced pilot), the sea, the colors and magic of where he grew up, and the children’s games he played back in the old days. He works on recognizable subjects—like the DNA of his Islands—always looking for moments of poetry in everyday surroundings, dreaming awake while straddling representation and abstraction. He experiments with colors and composition, seeking to reach a work’s final form in his paintings.

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As an engineer, his familiarity with all kinds of machines allows him to incorporate various materials—from acrylic to aircraft aluminum—creating 3D works that intertwine with his paintings.

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He defines himself as an imaginative dreamer, attracted to real-world inversions and magical beliefs in order to reach the mysterious and unfathomable places of the artists he admires: the masters of surrealism, abstraction, and Pop Art.