Geneviève Jost was born in 1944 in Compiègne, France.  Her father was a forester, which may have influenced her fascination with animals and the wooded enclaves they inhabit.  Jost developed an early passion for drawing but ultimately chose to study education and worked as a social worker for a number of years before a visit to an exhibition of American outsider art in New York in 1965, suddenly re-awakened her desire to be a painter.

After settling in Sherbrooke, Quebec with her family in 1967, Jost began to teach herself how to paint, calling upon her childhood memories and the serene lake and wooded scenes that surrounded her home as inspiration.  It quickly became clear that she was a natural, instinctively picking up the techniques she needed, particularly those ofperspective and transparency, to convey what would become her signature magic realist style in the grand tradition of Edward Hicks and Henri Rousseau.  Applying her colours like a wash, Jost works in subtle layers, resulting in a luminosity that gives her finished paintings a wonderful sense of depth.

Geneviève Jost has been exhibiting since 1980, beginning in galleries throughout Quebec – in Montreal, North Hatley, and Lavaltrie.  Many solo exhibitions soon followed in Toronto, Paris, Brussels, New York, Tel Aviv, and Berlin.  Her paintings can be found in such public collections as the Musée International d’Art Naïf, Magog, Quebec, the McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario, Musée d’art naïf de la ville de Paris, France, Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke, Quebec, University, Musée de Charlevoix, Pointe au Pic, and the College of Cape Breton Art Gallery, Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Her work is also represented in such corporate collections as Dupont Canada, Montréal, Quebec, General Electric, Toronto, Ontario, Montréal Trust, Montréal, Quebec, Sélection du Reader’s Digest, Montréal, Quebec, Via Rail, Montreal, Bombardier, Montreal and Banque Scotia, Montreal.