Joby Hickey is the son of renowned painter, etcher, lithographic artist, architect and designer, Patrick Hickey. Joby's father was one of the founding members of the Graphic Studio Dublin, which was established in 1961. His characteristic painting technique developed out of his printmaking methods, just as Joby's style has developed from his innate love of film and photography.

Though he completed his formal education at the National College of Art and Design, his real artistic education came from his father who taught and encouraged him for most his life. After his studies, Hickey moved to London to work in film and documentaries. He spent on-and-off about five years in the camera department, where he began to develop his own unique methods of film and photography.

His unique style of painting thus evolved from his inherent passion of film and photography. "Semi-photo-realism" is how Hickey describes his style. "I sometimes see my paintings as single shots from a film," he has commented. He creates cinematic compositions with his dramatic use contre-jour lighting, which he fuses into painting.

Most of Hickey's work deals with the lighting on cars, buildings and streets. He says that cars and traffic seem natural to him. "I see more cars a day than trees. I suppose that's just what I look for." These paintings are evocations of life and at times, the isolation of big city dwellers. His mastery of craft is the way in which Hickey is able to simplify his compositions.

His work points to how cars, through technology, have interfered with human communication and our sense of community, creating a very barren feeling. "I rarely try to verbalize my work, as I think it has a visual language of its own. If I could, I would be a writer and I'm not. I think my paintings are self explanatory."

Hickey cites German artist, Gerhard Richter, as an influence, but when looking at Hickey's paintings, the work of American Edward Hopper springs to mind. Like Hopper, Hickey has a meticulous eye, which sees all elements of the composition carefully positioned as if they have literally been captured before or after the climax of a scene.

Hickey's newest Tintin Series provides a distinct break from his usual meticulous style of painting.  With large expanses of flat color and heavy black outlines, he plays with the animated characters of his favorite childhood television and book series, The Adventures of Tintin.  Whether seen in space, walking through a sunny park, waving good-bye to the New York skyline, or walking towards the familiar Dublin Poolbeg smokestacks, Tintin and his trusty terrier, Snowy, are always off on an adventure and ready to see the world.  An air of nostalgia for this childish desire to explore new, unmapped frontier can be felt in the series, an ability which is all the more romanticized by his signing the paintings not as J. Hickey, but J. Marin, his boyhood name before his adoption by the family of Patrick Hickey. 

Hickey participated in his first group show at the Irish cultural centre  "Comhaltas Ceoltoiri na Eireann" in 1990. Since then he has been exhibiting worldwide, and his work his held in prominent collections, such as Tiffany and Company. He has been a full time painter for over 15 years, with 1997 marking the first time he exhibited his work at the prestigious RHA annual exhibition.