Photographer's Profile

Jean-Tomas Bédard

Independant, Canada

Painter, drawer, film maker and photographer, Jean-Thomas Bédard grew up on a dairy farm on bank of lake St-John in a secluded region of the Province of Quebec, Canada. Jean-Thomas Bédard started to draw and paint at 12 years old, leading him when he was 20 at Montreal School of Fine Arts, then at the National Film Board of Canada where he worked over 30 years as director of documentaries and animated films. His animation film Chairmen using animated photographs won 3 awards in international film festivals (Chicago, Oberhausen and Annecy) in 1980. When he was 32, he travelled for one year around the world while he devoted himself to photography. He collected from his journey a great amount of pictures from whom he has built a photo exhibition held in Montreal and Toronto (York University Gallery) illustrating the traditional way of living in Central America, Pacific region and Indonesia. Nowadays he is dedicated in photographical search for textures and colors issued from wild life to creations evoking non-figurative art. His favorite theme revolves around the banks of the magnificent Saint Lawrence river and its estuary revealing their visual treasures at low tides. Nowadays, he pursues his aesthetic researches by using photo montage and photo manipulations to create more personal and symbolic images from a selection of his original material.