Chantale Jean, a self-taught painter from Charlevoix plays with imagination. Her unforgettable images invite us to share her deep respect for nature and for animals.

Jean creates a world of fantasy where, like a Lafontaine fable, her creatures hold court, revel and gather around festive tables... Mesmerized by a parade of geese or the dance of tufted ducks cavorting on a pond, Chantale Jean highlights both the strength and the frailty of the worlds around us. Each painting is a “silent poem”, beckoning the viewer to enter “her world”. If her tale is unvoiced, the artist is anything but silent when it comes to expressing her admiration for nature and her commitment to defending it; through her paintings, she openly criticizes a world which would destroy the beauty and colour of nature in the name of profit.

Her works are filled with a sense of humour. The pleasure she gets from directing her “budding actors” is palpable. The unpredictable textures of her paintings and the marriage of figurative and abstract motifs infuse her works with an element of surprise which prods the viewer to go beyond the experience of the artist. Her eccentric palette enhances the plasticity of her paintings and throws the viewer into the unpredictable scenarios she creates. Each theatrical painting stages a play with a colourful cast and extravagant titles, reinventing the world she begs us to discover.

Chantale Jean was born in La Malbaie, Charlevoix, Québec, and resides on the Montmorency River, near the Montmorency Falls.