Montreal artist Luc Courchesne has spent the past five decades working on interactive and digital art forms.
Now, his practice is being recognized with the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas, which the province of Quebec calls its highest distinction in the visual arts and craft. It comes with a $30,000 award.
Courchesne was born in St-Léonard-d’Aston in 1952 and received a bachelor’s degree in design from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1974. A decade later, he earned a master’s of science in visual studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also influenced younger generations of artists and creatives as a professor in the school of design at l’Université de Montréal from 1989 to 2013.
Through the years, Courchesne’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Fundacion La Caixa in Barcelona, La Villette in Paris and the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. He is currently represented by his longtime dealer, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, in Montreal.
Courchesne played a key role in co-founding or growing Canadian digital arts groups like the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts and the Société des arts technologiques, both of which are based in Montreal.
Past winners of the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas include Jana Sterbak, Rita Letendre and Betty Goodwin.
The prize decision this year was made by jury members Claudine Thériault, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Pascale Girardin, Carmelle Adam and Monic Brassard.
