ANTWERP.- Richard Haines is a celebrated artist known for his expressive and gestural drawings that capture the fluidity of contemporary fashion and urban life. Originally a fashion designer, Haines transitioned into drawing making, quickly gaining recognition for his ability to distill movement, personality, and style with just a few strokes of ink. His work, which has appeared in major publications and been commissioned by leading fashion houses, is deeply rooted in observation—sketching people in motion, often on the streets of New York, where he is based. His figures are never static; they embody a sense of fleeting elegance, as if caught in the middle of a step or a gesture, making his work uniquely suited to exploring the dynamics of movement.
For his first solo exhibition in Europe at Tommy Simoens, Haines takes inspiration from Eadweard Muybridge, the 19th-century pioneer of motion studies. Revisiting, amongst others, his signature walking figures, Haines animates them into a series of moving sequences, bringing his drawings to life in a way that mirrors Muybridge’s groundbreaking photographic studies of human and animal locomotion. These new works explore the relationship between illustration and movement, emphasizing how his signature style shapes the body in motion and how style itself exists as an ongoing performance. By translating his work into animations, Haines expands his practice beyond the static page, reinforcing his fascination with gesture, elegance, and the fleeting beauty of everyday moments.
Together with the creative director Julius Poole, another native New Yorker, the gallery and the artist are curating an exhibition exploring colours, shape and movement in the works of Richard Haines.
Richard Haines is a Brooklyn-based artist whose career began in the world of fashion design, where he worked for iconic brands including Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis, and Bill Blass. In the mid-2000s, he shifted his focus to drawing, quickly gaining recognition for his elegant, gestural style and keen eye for character and movement. Haines’s work has been featured in The New York Times, GQ, and Vogue, and he has collaborated with fashion houses such as Dries Van Noten, Hermes, Prada, and Tiffany’s amongst others. His drawings, often done on-the-go in sketchbooks or on the backs of menus and receipts, capture the ephemeral nature of style and street life. With a practice rooted in observation and driven by intuition, Haines has established himself as a unique voice at the intersection of art, fashion, and urban culture.
