Patrick Coutu holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal (1997), and a master’s degree from the Glasgow School of Art (2003) and Concordia University (2005). Since 1997, his works have been featured in a number of exhibitions in Canada, including at Galerie René Blouin, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBA), and abroad. His artworks are in public collections (MACM, MNBA, NGC, Ville de Montréal) and private collections.
Artwork description
Patrick Coutu’s work explores the precise scientific models underlying all organic matter, borrowing their structural principles and turning them into an aesthetic system. Not time-bound, but rather captured in the moment as it arrives, his sculptures emphasize the paradoxically controlled and chaotic evolution of all that is vegetable, mineral and numerical. Cristalmath 2 (2, 4, 6) is in keeping with the artist’s fascination for clusters formed of elemental units. Echoing its title, this practically human-sized sculpture calls to mind both crystal formations and the mathematical organization inherent to every geometric shape found in nature. To contrast its precise composition, it leans at a precarious angle, suggesting not only nature’s expansion, but also the inevitable dissolution of its parts to make way for new evolved forms.