Born in Sherbrooke in 1970, Jean-Sébastien Denis obtained a bachelor's degree in visual arts from UQAM in 1996. He lives and works in Montreal, where he has been represented by Galerie Simon Blais since 2002. A lecturer in painting at the Université de Sherbrooke, he has also produced numerous works integrating art and architecture throughout Quebec.
In his work, he develops a hybrid plastic language, integrating pictorial, graphic and even sculptural processes. He explores the plasticity of materials, colors and shapes in his shifting, geometric compositions.
Jean-Sébastien Denis has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Montreal, Toronto, Nova Scotia and the United States. In 2018, his work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée. He continued his exploration of space in three installation exhibitions: Shapé at the maison de la culture Janine-Sutto (2019), Extensions, décalages et propos ambigus sur la plasticité (2017) at the Galerie Simon Blais and the most important, Pièces at the Centre d'art Jacques et Michel Auger, resulting from an in situ residency. He will exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke in 2026.
A retrospective publication was devoted to his work in 2022 (Éditions Simon Blais).
He has also created a dozen public artworks as part of the program for the integration of art and architecture. These include Ascension for the UQO in Saint-Jérôme (2012); Prisme for the MUHC (2014); a mural entitled Hommage à Marcelle Ferron in Outremont (2021); Kyrielle, a series of works installed on the ARTM's SRB-Pie IX kiosks in Montreal and Laval (2022-2025); and six works in Quebec schools. He also served for several years as a specialist on the committee of the program for the integration of the arts in architecture.
He holds grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. His works are part of several public collections (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Loto-Québec, Hydro-Québec) and corporate collections (National Bank of Canada, Groupe Transcontinental).
