When not planning to crucify himself, French painter Antonin Delas is painting album covers for heavy metal bands. The man who claims to have seen both God and the devil talks to DICKON HARRIS.

Believe it or not, a quiet street in Kingston is home to a former grave digger, embalmer and paratrooper who used to own a sex shop and plans to film his own crucifixion.

It may sound like a character outline for a horror film, but Antonin Delas is real, and gaining ever more fame among a certain music community.

His primary work these days is as an illustrator for black metal bands, painting album covers and t-shirts for bands such as Dark Domination, a Latvian metal band, and French group The End 666.

He has had two sold out exhibitions, and is busy preparing the art work for The End 666's next album: "I am beginning to enjoy success I wasn't trying to find," he said.

Born in France in 1961, Antonin has had a number of careers. He left the French paratroopers to study law at the Aix Faculty in Marseille. After he graduated he became a grave digger, before training and working as an embalmer for seven years. He finished embalming to build and run his own sex shop in France, but stopped to paint full time.

His move to Kingston is a recent one but he has a lot of affection for England.

He said: "In France people don't like my paintings. I organised an exhibition and no one came. They said my paintings were too horrible and they didn't understand them. In England I sell all my paintings. They understand the art and I like the way people think here. I respect Great Britain a lot. It's a fabulous country."

Most of Antonin's paintings prominently feature scenes of murder and death. Antonin is frank that death has always been an important subject for him. He chose to become an embalmer in order "to discover the meaning of death".

He said: "I wanted to find out what there is after death. The best way is to be near someone who is dead. When you are near a body there is a manifestation of that person after they die. Having contact with dead people allows the only real chance of finding out what it is like when you are not alive.

"I saw both God and the Devil while I was working as an embalmer. I met the Devil when I had to dress a man who had beaten his wife for several years. His wife eventually killed him and I had to go to the hospital to dress him. As I entered I could hear the noise of wings flapping in the room. No one can stay in the room with the Devil. It was a horrible presence. I was beyond being afraid."

Antonin then left embalming to open his own sex shop, despite never having been to a sex shop before. He added: "It was for the money rather than for the sex. I knew the business. Because I read the financial papers and realised that there was a lot of money to be had from sex shops. But you can't have a normal life when you work in a sex shop.

"That type of business attracts a lot of crazy people and everyone is very strange. Working there makes you strange. I slept during the day and worked at night. When there is sex and money it can turn dangerous.

"I prefer life with my wife, her daughter and my dogs."

Antonin's painting career really took off when he decided to exhibit his work at the Waken metal festival in Germany four years ago.

He sold all his paintings within four days and was soon contacted by bands.

He said: "After the festival, Dark Domination contacted me to do their album cover.

"I listened to their CD and when I found out that their drummer had hanged himself in a Latvian forest, I couldn't say no to them."

Antonin gets animated when I ask him what his next project will be: "I want to crucify myself during a concert and make a movie of that."

Art lovers can see more of Antonin's work at antonindelas.com.