Jean Bilquin was trained as a graphic artist and later studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. He taught painting at the Ghent Academy.

In 2009, Ernest Van Buynder, chairman of the MuHKA wrote: "The work of Jean Bilquin creates a perfect sense of harmony where nature and cosmos are the starting point and provide the benchmark. Jean Bilquin is not an "art for art's sake" artist. With love he deals with acrylic paint, pigment and binder on canvas, ink, pencil, charcoal and pastel on paper, and he conceives his sculptures in plaster for transformation into bronze. He paints, draws and sculpts its own emotions. He puts energy into matter. "