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Dans sa peinture, Jane Courquin invite a une balade champetre, fleurie et tout en douceur et lumiere. Sa carte de visite artistique est bardee de diplomes et de ctitiques elogieuses outre-manche et en France. Courquin et son conjoint Nichollas Hamper, tout deux peintres professionnels britanniques, se sont installes a Verteuil-sur-Charente en 2005. Ils ont achete trois granges en ruine, au Coeur du village. Ils les ont patiemment transformees en une tres belle maison mais aussi en ateliers spacieux, ou ils vivent et travaillent.

Sunday 23 October 2016

Celebrating my 50th Birthday with Botticelli's Venus at the Uffizi in Florence 16 October 2016


Being driven to Florence from our studios in France through the rolling volcanic Route de Fromage of the Auvergne, spiralling skywards into the French  Apennines through driving rain and a foggy snow blizzard worthy of Turner's masterpiece on the subject and then carefully unwinding ourselves down through the foothills of the Apennines and so on to the bright Titian blue skies of Florence was just the perfect 50th Birthday present from one Artiste Peintre to another Artiste Peintre and a celebration of everything that makes our shared world pulsate.

We arrived in Florence late afternoon Saturday 15th October 2016 by car at the Horologie Hotel in commemoration of my maternal grandfather Lenard Bott who started out as a watchmaker and jeweller. I remember well his special tin of watch mechanisms and articulated silvery and golden watch bracelets.

We ran around the Duomo on the square and then suppered at La Menagere, a vaulted jazz cafĂ©- resto- winebar with a live music  jazz basement, upstairs  flower seller and Italian fine patisseries vendor and the seeming epicentre of Florentine 21st century bright young things. Recommended!






































And so to bed ...good night ladies and gentlemen ...good night !

ExPo JANE COURQUIN 2016 sur la route de St Jacques de Compostelle


 Thank you to everyone who attended my exhibition at the Abbaye in Nanteuil-En-Vallee during July 2016. It was the culmination of many years painting away in my studio since arriving in France in 2003.
A timely celebration of a decade of Joie de Vivre that being part of the E.U. made possible.
Special thanks to Monsieur Godeau for all the organisation and to Dominique Retouret for the press.

Fresque 3 ~ Verteuil-sur-Charente 2016



Jane Courquin ~ Fresque 3, Verteuil-sur-Charente, 2016

 The third Verteuil Fresque complete by the close of June 2016, I set about organising myself for the Exhibition of my paintings at L'Abbaye de Nanteuil-en-Vallee that ran throughout the month of July 2016. It was a brilliant way to spend the first half of 2016 and left me some space afterwards for a series of commissions for fresques, and paintings that I have been working on just before the run up to my 50th birthday which I spent at the Uffizi in Florence standing in awe before Botticelli's Venus.



Tuesday 21 June 2016

Les Fresques ~ Verteuil-sur-Charente


 >La Fleuriste Des Artistes<

Today, in conjuction with the 2016 Summer Solstice, the second fresque  >La Fleuriste Des Artistes< was completed. It is a celebration of bouquets and flora in European Art and makes reference to some of my favourite Artists who have been inspirational to my own practice.


It follows shortly after the first fresque that was inspired by the Chasse A La Licorne Tapestries once in the Verteuil Chateau and now in the Cloisters of the New York MET which was completed at the end of May 2016.




Thursday 28 April 2016

Trois Murailles A Verteuil-sur-Charente

 Le cerisier est l'arbre de la joie et du contentement humain. Il apparait dans les tapisseries > La Chasse A La Licorne< lesquels jusqu'aux Annees Vingts se trouvaient au Chateau de Verteuil-sur-Charente.
C'est avec l'idEe de restaurer l'histoire des tapisseries perdus que je me mets a la tache de peindre la premiere muraille a Verteuil-sur-Charente.
 Les tapisseries se trouvent maintenant dans le MET a New York. On peut acceder au site internet du MET pour les etudier en detail.




Wednesday 20 January 2016

The Spring Murals~ La Chasse A La Licorne

Work has begun on the sketches for the first mural. I have been  researching the fresques of antiquity, medieval tapestries and early renaissance painting and some of my favourite twentieth century painters who continually inspire my output.


Sketch ~La Chasse A La Licorne dans La Foret de la Tremblay








 The >Chasse A La Licorne< Tapestries, housed until 1922 here in the Verteuil Chateau, will be the inspiration for one of the three Spring Murals. The Tapestries were created between 1485~ 1505. In 1922 the La Rochefoucauld family sold them to the American oil magnate Rockefeller for an alleged 10 million dollars. Their incorporation in to one of my murals will go part way to bringing them back home to Verteuil~sur~Charente. This time La Chasse A La Licorne will be painted for the whole population of the village to enjoy rather than to be hidden away unseen by the many until sold by a few.





I am drawn to the image of the painter as something magical painting the joys and pains of the whole of humanity as in Frida Kahlo's self portrait as a wounded stag. A magical creature hunted for its gifts, the unicorn was believed to heal illness and purify water poisoned by serpents to make it once again drinkable.