Jean-François Debongnie
Born in Brussels 1968. Painter. Self-taught. First travels in Asia in 1989. He then traveled to Thailand and Malaysia before settling in Singapore for over ten years. Jean-François founded his family there by marrying a Singaporean and is now the father of four children.
Divided between his native Brussels and his beloved Singapore, artist Jean-François Debongnie admits to having nurtured a particular attraction to Asia since early childhood. It's no coincidence, then, that his paintings - mainly Chinese inks on acrylic washes - have an Asian influence.
The omnipresence of the plant element, particularly flowers. The artist brings flowers to life by depicting them iconographically, capturing a flower's aesthetic rather than botanical qualities, and integrating them into an often wild landscape. The result is an impression of movement, with the fluidity of flower stems dancing across the canvas like a celebration of life.
His art combines the richness of both Eastern and Western art. "When I first arrived in Singapore, I went to galleries to see paintings by local artists, but I found them too traditional. I liked the technique, but I wasn't attracted by the representations - the typical Chinese landscape paintings, I'd prefer something more abstract, more modern".
The artist's works
