Tarn-et-Garonne. Escape to Quercy Blanc, through the paintings of Béatrice Hubesch in Montauban

The Quercy Blanc, sometimes called “valleys of Quercy Blanc” or traditionally Causse blanc is a geographical area straddling the departments of Lot and you Tarn et Garonne. Its hills and valleys cover the south of historic Quercy.

The outcropping rock is mainly light-coloured limestone (hence the name Quercy Blanc). The area includes many villages and hamlets, such as Lauzerte, Cazes Mondenard, Montaigu-de-Quercy, Castelnau-Montratier and Montcuqwhich attract many visitors.

Born in Brussels in 1957, I discovered Quercy in 1976, and will never leave it, charmed by its gentleness mixed with its many more abrupt and wild corners, where the colors blend or bump into its white limestone.

A ceramicist training

The artist, who has an original background, was already very sensitive to the characteristics of the earth, since she was trained as a ceramist.

Detours followed by the creation of theater costumes and clothing, before embarking on pencils and brushes to be able to model the landscape and its depth.

With landscapes, I lose myself in contemplation, and sketch them with energy, always on the spot, before the long hours in the studio, where memory purifies and abstracts my work. Oil, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, inks are all materials that lend themselves to it.

Sharing and artistic research with schools

Many years of sharing plastic research with schoolchildren from Tarn-et-Garonne have nourished his career and maintained his wonder.

His paintings entered Montauban through Le Pré de l’Estang in 2018, after numerous exhibitions in Brussels, Cahors, Agen, Castelsarrasin (jury prize at the Salon d’Automne 2009), Moissac, Lauzerte, Roquecor, Saint Beauzeil, Saint Porquier, Beauville, etc.

They are collected in France, Belgium, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada.

I am delighted to have joined Quercy Blanc. A fabulous place, where confinement is not a punishment…