Michael French

His early shows at the Roberts Gallery coincided with a period of time in which Michael was homesteading in Newfoundland, where he mostly survived by hunting moose, caribou, waterfowl, caught fish, cut and chopped firewood to heat his home , heat water and cook with. He spent about half of the day doing survival chores and the other half painting by natural light. Sometimes Michael would go into the country or Barrens of Newfoundland and lived off the land using his survival skills for two or three months at a time as well as drawing and photographing subjects for his paintings every day. All of his paintings from this period were painted on an art board composed of acid free paper. He painted in acrylic using watercolor techniques. His subjects were often the ocean, buildings, wildlife and people.

After the homesteading period he moved to Quebec on New Year’s day 1983 where he lived alternately between two residences, an apartment with a large bay window overlooking the Plains of Abraham in old Quebec City and a stone farmhouse dating back to the “Regime Francais” on the Ile D´Orleans which had a view towards the estuary of the St. Lawrence River. During the Quebec years (1983 to 2002), Michael painted on solid acrylic panels. His subjects were similar to the Newfoundland subjects, but often were more surrealistic and painted from memory.