Born in Montreal in 1942, Pierre Coupey stands as a prominent Canadian figure, embodying the roles of painter, poet, and editor, with a distinguished history as a former instructor at Capilano University. In recognition of his significant contributions, he was granted Professor Emeritus status by the University in 2019.
His educational journey includes studies at Lower Canada College, earning a BA from McGill University, delving into drawing at the Académie Julian, and mastering printmaking at Atelier 17 in Paris. Coupey played a pivotal role as a founding co-editor of The Georgia Straight and later assumed the mantle of the founding editor of The Capilano Review.
Coupey's artistic endeavors have not gone unnoticed, as he has been the recipient of awards, grants, and commissions from prestigious institutions such as the Conseil des Arts du Québec, the Canada Council, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Audain Foundation for the Arts.
Beyond his visual artistry, Coupey has contributed to the literary world with several published books of poetry, chapbooks, and catalogues. His creative footprint extends to solo and group exhibitions on both national and international stages. His works find a home in numerous private collections across Canada, the United States, Japan, and Europe, as well as in corporate, university, and public collections throughout Canada.
For those intrigued by Pierre Coupey's multifaceted artistic journey and his impactful contributions, a visit to his official website provides a comprehensive exploration.
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“The shape of this place, Dundarave Park, is always shifting, with and without human intervention, so this print is in some ways about that - shapes shifting into and out of one another, things appearing and disappearing. Before this area was colonized and became Dundarave, the forest came to the water’s edge. A now buried and invisible creek ran down the shore, and there wasn’t any beach. Almost all of what is here is human artifact - the beach, the pier, the lawns, the planters, the paths, the structures. Through it all, this park is a place for human play and re-creation a space where multiple human imaginations intersect with what is constant - earth, ocean, light, air - all in a dance of living connections, of which this print is just one such thing.” - Pierre Coupey
Part of the Visions of the North Shore project.
As Pound noted in his introduction to the Cavalcanti poems, “The perception of the intellect is given in the word; that of the emotions in the cadence.” Variations done for bpNichol 1–12 (1990) comprise a set of paintings of such muted and cadenced intensity that they convey little sense of the kind of consciously foregrounded (and, therefore, interfering) homage or derivation that they might have had in the hands of a painter less devoted to process.
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