Biography

Paul Duval was born in Beauce in 1963. From 1980 to 1982, he studied at the Saint-Jean-Port-Joli Woodcarving School and, in 1984, pursued a year in visual arts at Cégep de Sainte-Foy, Quebec City. Subsequently, throughout the years he pursued his education enabling him to work with leather, stone and metal. For more than 15 years, life has enabled him to travel the roads of Europe,  Caribbean and West Africa. Back in Quebec in 2003, he settled on family land and returned to sculpture. Since then, Paul Duval has been awarded several distinctions and one of his works has been selected for the Prize of July 3, 1608 awarded by the Superior Council of the French language. In 2014, he created a sculpture as part of the first edition of Beauce Art: The International of Sculpture. In the fall of 2016, he prepared his backpack and travelled to France and Burkina Faso to carve two monumental sculpture in  stone two monumental. All his creations are inscribed with his life’s journeys.

Artistic approach

This monumental and architectural sculpture standing with a height of 20 feet represents two characters forming an arch. It is reminiscent of children’s games in the schoolyard and the park, but we can also see the solidarity of people who come together to make big plans. This work overlooks the footpath so that passers-by have the chance to circulate underneath. This sculpture is a point of departure and arrival, a landmark, a meeting place. It is called to be an integral part of the landscape of Saint-Georges. The sculpture “The passage” is entirely made of aluminum. Pieces were cut and hammered to the desired shape and then welded to the aluminum pipe skeletons of the two characters. The welding machine was also used to texture the material.