Biography of Jean Francois

What is Extreme Art? French action painter and performer Jean Francois removes painting from the realm of studios and galleries and transforms it into high-energy public entertainment. His performances combine comedy and art in a unique show, choreographed to music.

Jean Francois paints anything; portraits of celebrities, landmarks, cityscapes, still lifes, reproductions of old masters, planetary landscapes… He creates these on ten foot canvases in minutes using his hands, feet, body, or anything else that happens to be available. Jean Francois’ improvisations are legendary—the only things he avoids are brushes. His theatrical presentations use painted optical effects with mechanical illusions and special effects designed for each performance.

Jean Francois has performed in Las Vegas productions at MGM Grand, Caesars Palace, Bally’s and New York, New York as well as corporate events and conventions for Sun Micro Systems, Du Pont, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Verizon and many more. He has also performed at private functions for Prince Charles, the Grimaldi family, Pope John II, the Sultan of Brunei and others.

Jean Francois has immortalized on canvas such luminaries as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Luciano Pavarotti, Enzo Ferrari, Presidents Clinton and Bush, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and others. He has also given his artistic interpretation to corporate images and logos for IBM, Sun Microsystems, Coors, Moet et Chandon, Cartier and more. Born in Namur Belgium, Jean Francois Detaille discovered his passion for art at an early age. Painting was his father’s hobby, and on vacations with his parents in Spain and the South of France Jean Francois would watch the local artists create on-the-spot portraits for tourists. In 1975, after a chance meeting in Figueras, Spain with the flamboyant artist Salvador Dali, Jean Francois realized that the quiet life of the studio artist was not for him.

In 1976, he enrolled in the Academy of Beaux Art in Belgium—best known as the school of painters Jan van Eyck, Brueghel, Rubens, Magritte, James Ensor, Alechinsky and others—to develop his talent along more formal lines. Upon completion, he enrolled in the Academy des Beaux Arts de Paris, birthplace of numerous art movements and the school of impressionist painters Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jean Francois Millet, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, cubist Pablo Picasso, surrealist Salvador Dali, conceptual artist Ben Wautier and performance artist Yves Klein.

Jean Francois’ desire for adventure led him to travel widely. In 1982, he packed his bags and art supplies and traveled around the world on a sailboat, painting thousands of paintings along the way. The Caribbean, Hawaii and Tahiti were his new themes and his boat made a perfect studio.

“I always painted in front of an audience to music. In school I was faster than everybody else,” says Jean Francois. Searching for a methodology that would harness his technical skills and allow a rapid, spontaneous style of work, he created Extreme Art in the early 1990’s. Working with explosive energy, without preliminary plans or sketches, Jean Francois uses forceful strokes of vibrant color to fill large canvases in minutes. Working at this rapid pace opens a more direct channel between the image in his mind and the motions of his hands, giving the finished work greater immediacy and power.

In 1997 Jean Francois was asked to perform in the show “Madhattan” at the New York New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. That engagement resulted in other invitations from producers and event planners in several countries. In 2000, Jean Francois was named the Spotlight Awards Entertainer of the Year for the special/corporate event market.