Artists Speak: Abstract Painter Willy Heeks

IFA’s 2018 “Artists Speak” series features four established artists and aims to heighten public understanding of how artists’ careers unfold and how the arts connect to building community. Other speakers in the series include Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Howard Newman, and Mary Healey Jamiel.

Heeks received his BFA from the University of Rhode Island in 1973 and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program that same year. He attended the Tyler School of Art, Graduate School, in Philadelphia, PA in 1977.In the ensuing years, he has gained a national reputation for creating luminous abstract paintings, exhibiting in New York, Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. He was an NEA fellowship recipient in 1978, 1987, and 1989.

Heeks’ art work has been exhibited in over 150 group and 60 solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe and has been collected by many museums and universities.His work is also included in the personal collection of Queen Beatrice of Hollandand in corporate collections at BP America; Bed, Bath and Beyond, Inc.; Little Ceasar’s Inc.; NYNEX; Williams and Sonoma, Inc.; Dow Jones, Inc., to name a few.