Born in 1937 in Nantes, Brittany, in the northwestern corner of France, Jean Duquoc is a man of his time and place. He is inexorably tied to this region. While geographically part of France, Brittany’s soul remains its own. The only Celtic nation outside of the British Isles, Brittany packs a whole world into 1000 square miles; heath, forest, rocks, and sea. The elements roar through the countryside as if to battle. This tension creates dynamic transformation, of color and emotion. Jean Duquoc describes his job as seeing these forces of nature and capturing them on canvas.

A self-taught painter, Jean Duquoc draws his inspiration from the sea, the sky and the earth that surround and define him. Many of his themes revolve around the traditional and rapidly disappearing Breton way of life. He chooses symbols like the peasant women in the fields, the village chapel, old-fashioned sailboats, and the paths that connect them. It is by these paths that we can find our way into his paintings.

Not tied to one medium, Duquoc employs graphite, oils, acrylics, and most recently, oil pastels. For him, the pastels are an act of bravery. They are a mistress as demanding as Brittany herself, no mixing of the colors, no redoing any aspect. Just one man, one canvas, and a riot of pigment, capturing the moment before it fades away.

Many words have been used to describe the work of Jean Duquoc – Colorist, Fauvist, Expressionist, Regionalist. Each word speaks to some aspect of his work but the only one that encompasses the entire range is Duquoc.