Biography
Pierre Coupey was raised and educated in Montreal. He graduated from Lower Canada College and received his BA from McGill University, and then studied drawing at the Académie Julian and printmaking at the Atelier 17 in Paris. He received his MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and a Certificate in Printmaking from the Art Institute, Capilano University.
He was a founding Co-editor of The Georgia Straight and the founding Editor of The Capilano Review. His work has received awards, grants, and commissions, including grants from the Conseil des Arts du Québec, the Canada Council, and the British Columbia Arts Council. He was a regular faculty member of the English Department at Capilano University from 1970 to 2003, and a non-regular from 2003 to 2011. He continues his association with the The Capilano Review by serving on The Capilano Press Society Board.
He has published several books of poetry, chapbooks and catalogues, and exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally. A major show of paintings and prints, Notations 1994-1998, took place at the Canadian Embassy Gallery in Tokyo in 1998 (curator Paula Gustafson, catalogue). His work is represented in numerous private collections in Canada, the United States, Japan and Europe, and in numerous corporate, university and public collections across Canada. Major public collections include the Burnaby Art Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Kamloops Art Gallery, the Kelowna Art Gallery, Simon Fraser University Art Gallery, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
His work was recently exhibited in a five-person show on abstraction, The Point Is: Pierre Coupey / Landon Mackenzie / Martin Pearce / Bernadette Phan / Bryan Ryley, curated by Liz Wylie at the Kelowna Art Gallery (catalogue). Co-curated by Darrin Morrison and Astrid Heyerdahl, the West Vancouver Museum and the Art Gallery at the Evergreen Cultural Centre recently presented a major survey show, Cutting Out the Tongue: Selected Work 1976-2012, which ran through March and April 2013 (catalogue). Gallery Jones also presented a solo show of new paintings, Field Work, which ran though April 2013.
His work is represented by Gallery Jones in Vancouver and by Odon Wagner Contemporary in Toronto.
Photo © Neisha Coupey
