His canvas is over six feet high and instead of using paint brushes, Jean Francois Detaille uses his hands in an explosion of colour.

Self-confessed ?extreme artist? Mr. Detaille has been entertaining crowds all over the world for more than a decade and on Friday he wowed students at the Careers Fair at the Bermuda College.

In 1976 he enrolled at the Academy of Beaux Art in Belgium to develop his talent along more formal lines, but upon completion enrolled in the famous Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, known over the years as the birthplace of numerous art movements and the school of impressionist painters include Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.

But the Belgium-born Mr. Detaille said he always loved the idea of travelling and this love of adventure took him on six-year journey by sailboat around the world.

During one of these trips, he stopped off for the first time in Bermuda to make repairs to his boat. He said he loved coming to Bermuda and would move to the Island in a heartbeat.

This is his fourth trip here.

As he performed for about 100 students at Friday?s career fair, Mr. Detaille turned the music up loud as he moved around paint tins and splashed paint onto the huge canvas.

?I always painted in front of an audience to music. In school I was faster than everybody else,? he said.

Searching for a methodology that would harness his technical skills and allow a rapid, spontaneous style of work, he created Extreme Art in the early 1990s.

Working with explosive energy and without preliminary plans or sketches, he uses forceful strokes of vibrant colour to fill large canvases in minutes.

He explains that working at this rapid pace opens a more direct channel between the image in his mind and the motions of his hands, giving the finished work greater immediacy and power. In 1997 he was asked to perform in the show ?Madhattan? at the New York New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

That engagement resulted in other invitations from producers and event planners in several countries and in 2000, he was named the Spotlight Awards Entertainer of the Year for the special/corporate event market.

?I perform at about 100 functions a year as well as my regular show in Las Vegas,? he said.

Next month he travels to Canada and Budapest.