The Heart in My Art

Heart Assemblages From Recycled & Found Objects by Michel Keck

The heart appears again and again in my work — in my abstract paintings, in my collage pieces, and most powerfully in my found-object heart assemblages. It isn’t something I consciously chose as a theme. It emerged over time, naturally and intuitively, until I realized the heart had become one of the central forms through which I understand and express my creative world.

For me, the heart is not a decorative symbol or a romantic cliché. It is a vessel. A structure for experience. A shape that holds contradiction, vulnerability, strength, loss, hope, memory, resilience, and connection all at once.

Why I Keep Returning to the Heart

I return to the heart because it is universally understood, yet endlessly complex. Everyone recognizes it, but no two people feel it in the same way. The heart carries emotional meaning, physical meaning, and spiritual meaning simultaneously. It is where feeling and awareness intersect.

The heart allows me to speak visually about human experience without needing language. It becomes a way to explore things that are difficult to explain directly — longing, empathy, tenderness, survival, fracture, repair, and transformation.

The heart is where everything converges.

The Heart as Intelligence, Not Just Symbol

One of the most important influences behind my heart assemblages has been my long engagement with heart-centered research and reading. Years ago, I became deeply interested in scientific work that explores the heart not just as an organ, but as an intelligent system that communicates with the brain, nervous system, and emotional body.

This research suggests that the heart plays a central role in emotional regulation, intuitive perception, and human connection. It proposes that emotional states like care, compassion, gratitude, and empathy create measurable changes in heart rhythms — patterns that reflect balance, coherence, and internal harmony.

What struck me most is the idea that the heart is not simply reacting to experience, but actively shaping how we perceive, process, and relate to the world around us.

This resonated profoundly with me as an artist. It gave language and structure to something I had always felt intuitively — that creativity, connection, and emotional truth originate from the heart before they ever reach the intellect.

Empathy as a Creative Force

Empathy is one of the qualities I value most — in life and in art. I believe empathy originates in the heart. It is the ability to feel into another experience, to sense without judgment, to remain open rather than defended.

My heart assemblages are, in many ways, physical expressions of empathy. They are invitations rather than declarations. They do not tell a single story; they leave space for personal interpretation, emotional projection, and reflection.

Each piece becomes a quiet bridge between inner worlds.

I truly believe the world could use more heart — not as sentimentality, but as awareness, care, and presence.

Found Objects as Emotional Material

Each heart assemblage begins with what I already have on hand — discarded, collected, salvaged, or forgotten materials. Old tools, rusted metal, weathered wood, industrial remnants, paper, fragments, textures, and traces of use.

I don’t impose a fixed design. The materials themselves dictate the direction of the piece. Their shapes, histories, scars, and surfaces determine what the heart becomes.

These objects carry their own past. They have been used, handled, worn down, left behind. When they are brought together into a heart form, their previous lives remain present — not hidden, not erased, but transformed into something new.

In this way, the heart becomes both symbol and reality: a structure built from experience.

©Michel Keck. All Rights Reserved. 

Assemblage as Transformation

I’m drawn to assemblage because it mirrors the way we construct meaning in our own lives — from fragments, memories, damage, beauty, accidents, and unexpected connections.

The act of building a heart from found materials feels like an act of repair. Not in a sentimental way, but in an honest one. Nothing is cleaned up. Nothing is perfected. Everything is integrated.

The flaws stay visible.
The wear stays visible.
The history stays visible.

That is where the emotional depth lives.

Every Heart Is One of a Kind

No two heart assemblages are ever the same. Each one is shaped by the materials available at that moment, my state of mind, and the intuitive decisions that happen during the making.

Each heart exists as a singular object — a moment of attention, intuition, and emotion solidified into physical form.

Explore the Heart Assemblages

You can view the full collection of available heart assemblages here:

Found-Object Heart Assemblages by Michel Keck

Each piece is created by hand and built from reclaimed materials, resulting in work that is tactile, layered, emotionally charged, and impossible to duplicate.

The Ongoing Story

The heart continues to appear in my work because it continues to feel true. It evolves as I evolve. It changes as materials change. It expands and contracts with time, experience, and perception.

I don’t try to define it completely.

I let it remain what it has always been:
a form that carries more than it can contain.

You can browse/purchase my one-of-a-kind heart art assemblages here.