Bio

Chantal Poulin-Durocher grew up in and around Montréal, Québec, Canada. Following her visual arts studies, and dissatisfied with the 80's visual arts university program, she decided to take classical art training at the Mission Renaissance Fine Art Institute. While rebelling against the diktat of institutionalized contemporary art and searching for the absolute, she could not help but master drawing and classical painting, thus legitimizing a deconstructionist future. The artist devoted many years to perfecting her skill. Chantal Poulin-Durocher thus reached a summit in her mastery of realist representational art.

She continued her development by concentrating on impressionist landscapes and later on expressionist still lifes. She painted in a more and more synthesized fashion and finally shifted from realism to total abstraction in the new millennium and integrated her Buddhist convictions into her art.

In 2009, in an attempt to experience a new social and visual environment, Chantal Poulin-Durocher emigrated from Quebec to Central America. There, she has set up her studio, first in the mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica and then on the beach in Panama, where she currently lives with her husband Eric and 9 rescued dogs.

Toronto’s Distillery district’s Thompson-Landry Gallery presented a solo show of her Central American influences. They represent her in Toronto since their opening.

Chantal has a deep love and compassion for sentient beings, and spends a great deal of her time bringing her respect for all life into her work and everyday life. Now 30 years into her artistic career, she has lately went full circle and came back to realism.