The Art of Healing Opens at Photopoint Gallery, May 1
Antoine de Villiers’ first solo gallery exhibition unveils six years of transformative, emotional work grounded in memory, vulnerability, and creative resilience.
Women Only Opening Reception & Artist Talk: Thursday, May 8, 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
Opening May 1 at Photopoint Gallery, The Art of Healing marks a powerful and personal milestone for painter Antoine de Villiers. Her first-ever solo gallery show is an intimate retrospective shaped by six years of life and artmaking in Richmond Hill, Georgia.
More than two dozen paintings will be on view at Photopoint Gallery, each piece serving as an examination of where de Villiers has traveled emotionally and how far she has come spiritually, both as an artist and a human being.
“This exhibition isn’t a look back,” says de Villiers. “It’s a map of what I’ve lived through. These paintings were made at moments when words weren’t enough. Now, they speak for me.”
Far from a traditional survey, The Art of Healing reads as a visual memoir, told through the emotional evolution of the artist herself. Across five interconnected series, de Villiers explores how trauma reshapes identity, how creativity can hold space for grief, and how the act of making becomes a form of survival. These works are quiet, intense, and raw. They were not created to impress, but to process. To endure. To heal.
As her work progressed, there was a shift from quiet reflection to fierce reclamation. A new energy emerged: internal, forceful, and necessary. Visceral XXXI pulses with intensity, signaling that this was no longer about survival—it was about rediscovering the will to persevere, understanding pain as a teacher, and recognizing that one can prevail against all odds. Layers of pigment and impasto collide; bold vermilion lines cut through the surface, drawn from the spiritual iconography of Japan’s Torii gates. These red thresholds—symbols of transition from the mundane to the sacred—resonate deeply, particularly one gate in Nagasaki that partially survived the 1945 atomic bombing. That image stayed with Antoine, becoming a lasting metaphor for the ability to endure the unthinkable. Works included in the Visceral series essentially trade softness for power, visually revealing an inexplicable, yet instinctive, inner strength. It marks the beginning of her quiet healing in Richmond Hill.
Centerpoint of the journey is Untitled XVI, a nearly life-sized mixed media painting created after de Villiers’ return from five years living in India. Painted during the early days of the pandemic, an era marked by stillness and disconnection, it captures two faceless figures leaning into each other, absent of gender or identity, yet full of presence. Their touch is subtle, their closeness tender. To the side, thin steel wires stretch across the surface, inscribed with faint lines as if they are fragments of a poem or memory permanently suspended in time. As key work included in The Space Within series, Untitled XVI was created during a period best defined by isolation. It is a direct reflection of de Villiers’ search for physical closeness and, more personally, a sense of belonging.
And then, quietly, came grief. When her brother passed away in late 2024, de Villiers was asked to design his funeral program. To do so, she opened a long-untouched box of family photographs—images that carried the weight of history and memory, of things left unsaid. What surfaced became Evocation IV, a piece that reflects not just loss, but the ache of complicated love. That work, along with others from the Evocation series, revealed a new tone in her practice. They are restrained, introspective, and emotionally bare.
One piece from this series was recently selected for inclusion at ArtFields 2025 (April 25th - May 3rd), underscoring the resonance of this quiet but powerful chapter in her journey. Here, the brush becomes less an instrument of expression and more a tool of remembrance.
Surrounding these three anchor works are over two dozen additional pieces that bring Antoine’s retrospective full circle. From Vīvus, a meditative collection inspired by driftwood and the quiet wisdom of the natural world, to Emotionalism, where figures are stripped of pretense and left beautifully vulnerable, every canvas contributes to a broader narrative of becoming. Each series is its own chapter, yet they are all in conversation, carefully threaded together becoming de Villiers’ visual voice. She is an artist who has spent years turning silence into color and experience into form.
This is not just an art exhibition. It is a portrait of healing—quietly bold and brave, and entirely human.
The Art of Healing opens Thursday, May 1 and runs through July 18 at Photopoint Gallery, located inside Elmgren’s Garden Center in Richmond Hill. More than two dozen paintings will be on view physically, while an exclusive, continued selection of works will also be available for purchase online for a limited time.
OPENING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK DETAILS
A special opening reception and artist talk will be held Thursday, May 8 from 6–8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, with women especially encouraged to attend for an evening of shared stories, reflection, and conversation with the artist. Light drinks and bites will be served.
