Artist: Marcel Desbiens

Marcel Desbiens is an award-winning artist who has won several prizes for his exquisite oil paintings capturing the true essence of nature’s beauty in his works. He was born in Quebec, Canada but now calls Landsborough home (just down the hill!). Marcel has been painting & teaching the methods of the Renaissance Masters’ oil painting techniques for over 40 years.
“The act of painting has taken me closer and closer to the natural beauty around me. I realise my interest is purely compositional and the style or subject, or lack of subject has no importance. Therefore, I can enjoy painting either from life, from a photo, from my imagination and memory and even from nothing at all. The result is consistently a representation of form and colours placed together in harmony for the pleasure of the eyes and the mind.”
Rooted in a classical technical foundation shaped by decades of study, Marcel’s work increasingly unfolds through intuition and improvisation. The landscapes of his upbringing in Quebec continue to echo through his pieces, resurfacing as atmosphere, light, and fragmented forms. Water, vegetation, and organic structures appear as recurring presences, though rather than remaining stable they dissolve, shift, and re-form, becoming carriers for states of memory rather than representations of place. In this way, the landscape becomes less external and more psychological.
“I work between control and surrender, allowing structure and chance to coexist. I intend to create spaces that hold ambiguity—where stillness, transformation, and perception exist in a continuous state of negotiation.”
Marcel founded Bienarté (Brisbane Painting Classes) in 2005, after discovering considerable interest in his unique oil painting methods, developed through decades of study of the techniques of artists such as Caravaggio, Rubens and Rembrandt. Marcel’s belief that anyone can paint, given appropriate instructions on the right tools, skills and techniques, led him to develop a series of classes in oil painting, from the foundations for absolute beginners, through to advanced techniques for those who wanted to extend their skills and experience.
Marcel’s passion for painting and his enormous in-depth knowledge of the medium of oil is clearly visible in his teaching and ongoing dedication to his own art.
