This red. With a luminosity that you shouldn’t be able to achieve in painting. A vibrant signature shade, reminiscent of the poppy flowers for which he is well-known. Their large scarlet corollas have since mutated into irregular parallelograms, patches of colour springing from his imagination. In any case, imagination has always been his muse. A sense of composition, his strength. The quiet strength of an artist who, humbly, in his studios or in the garden, has made his mark on canvas. He has acquired a touch, a sensitive trait too, that breathes life and movement into his abstractions. Because yes, today freed from figurativism and the poppy motif, he masters the art of abstraction. He has taken his colour palette to new heights, exploring sunny yellows, blues that at times evoke a glacier, at others, the sea; either way, the aesthete sees what they want. Marc Deblois is not an artist who jealously guards his art from the public’s interpretations. No, he paints for people, to share, for the encounter between his art and the one who receives it...

For years, it was this encounter with people visiting the workshop-boutique then known as «Les Ateliers DeBlois» that was the driving force behind his creations. Since then, the house in Saint-Irénée that he shared with his wife, the ceramist Joan Deblois, the workshops and the shop have continued their mission through the hands of a successor with the same heart and drive as the artistic couple. The apprentice-turned-potter, Stéphane Bouchard, and his textile designer companion Nancy Giguère, in turn, now fill this place with love and creation. Their mediums of expression and Marc Deblois’ paintings play off of one another in a happy synergy, displayed in the spaces Marc helped build, now called Les Ateliers Charlevoix. Knowing that the project he built with Joan will continue to live on through Stéphane and Nancy, has made it easier for Marc to transition into retirement...

make that partial retirement, as he’s not quite ready to give up his paintbrushes just yet.
An impulse decision 39 years ago, a desire to make a significant life change, led the couple, then living in downtown Toronto, to Charlevoix. At the time, Marc was a buyer in the field of men’s fashion, travelling to Europe, seeking out trends and already demonstrating a taste and flair that ­emphasized his artistic fibre. Tired of stayin­g in cookie-cutter hotel rooms, he began to feel the need to settle down. A nurse at the time, Joan began taking pottery and raku lessons, quickly developing a passion for this material and dreaming of making a living from it. And so, it is here, on the “route du fleuve” as it’s come to be known, near Saint-Irénée that the couple came to pursue their dream of ­making a living from their art; Joan behind the pottery wheel, Marc painting outside, taking part in the local tourism and artistic ecosystem, «being a part of the whole» as he likes to say. 

If you’re driving down the 362, we invite you to make a pitstop at Les Ateliers Charlevoix. While there, take the time to soak in the ­atmosphere, still charged with the energy from the years Deblois painted there, feel the synergy between the creations of the three artists who have brought their art to life at the heart of the workshops, admire the peaceful, controlled talent of painter extraordinaire, Marc Deblois.