Draft:Richard Purdy

• Comment: May be notable but article lacks the required multiple citations of significant coverage (in-depth - more than brief profiles, passing mentions, art listings or routine reporting) about Purdy in reliable independent secondary sources with reputations for accuracy and fact-checking. Paul W (talk) 10:00, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

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Richard Purdy, born in 1953 in Ottawa, is a Canadian artist and pataphysician.


Biography

A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and of Villa Schifanoia Badia Fiesolana in Florence, Italy, Purdy received a doctorate from the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2001. Active as an artist since 1975, he has exhibited in many countries around the world, both individually and in group exhibitions. In 1991, together with François Hébert, he founded Les industries perdues, which produced a large number of public artworks, notably in Montreal.

In 2010, he created four interconnected installations, L’écho-l’eau, for Espace Shawinigan in Mauricie. Purdy is also the author of some twenty publications, including his catalogue ecH2O L’écho-l’eau, published by Éditions d’art Le Sabord.

Purdy co-founded Galerie Oboro in Montreal and is the founder of galerie r3 at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. As a curator, he is responsible for Expédition dans la mémoire de Boréal Art Nature, presented from at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides 2024-25.

Purdy retired from the Department of Arts at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières in 2012.

Approach

Purdy uses performance, painting, installation, and sculpture. He collaborates with researchers from other disciplines, and this interdisciplinarity allows him to present different perspectives on the same subject. He particularly enjoys surprising viewers and playing with ambiguity and illusions. Through his work, especially in the field of installation, Purdy likes to challenge established codes of perception by creating fictional material, such as fake artifacts or fabricated cultural discoveries. In doing so, whether through individual works or installations, he confronts the viewer and leads them to question what they truly value in art and culture, especially when faced with propositions that exist on the border between truth and falsehood. His works are part of numerous collections, including the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

Major works

(AP - Public Art)

• The Lost Civilisation of Ba Pe, 1980, Saw Gallery, Ottawa, Factory 77, Toronto.
• Corpus Cristi, 1980, installation, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.
• The Poisoning of Reality, 1980, installation, Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts.

• The History of Culture X, 1987, installation.

• The Inversion of the World, 1988, installation.

• Progeria Longævus, 1988, 365-foot-long parchment.

• Travels through the Four Seasons of a Millennial Man, 1991, Lachine Hospital (AP).
• Music of the Spheres, 1991, Saint-Eustache Hospital Centre (AP).

• It Is the Ground that we need to take flight, 1991, McGill Metro Station, Montréal (AP).

• Intermezzo, 1992, Pierre-Péladeau Centre (AP).
• The Garden of the Hesperids, 1993, Université de Montréal, Montréal (AP).

• Experiences of Travel, 1993, Télé-Québec  (AP).
• Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy..., 1994, Collège Ahuntsic, Montréal (AP).
• Unrestored, 1995, installation, Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris.
• De Opificio Mundi, 1995, Place des Arts, Montréal (AP).

• The Great Studio of the World: De Opificio Mundi, 1995, Bois-des-Filions High School (AP).

• Deus Ex Machina, 1995, Theagre Carbone 14, Usine C, Montréal (AP).

• La Vivrière, 1995, FAO Plaza, Québec (AP).
• The Vanished Point of View, 1996, L'école de l'amitié, Le Gardeur (AP).

• Aeroarchaeology: Archaeology on the Planet Mars, 1997, Koffler Gallery, Toronto.

• The Vertical Horizon, 1997, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Montréal (AP).

• Horizontverchmelzung, 1999, installation, University of Sherbrooke.
• Crossing Dangerous Streets, 1999, installation, Maison Hamel-Bruneau, Québec.
• Tango de Montréal, 1999, Place Gérald-Godin, Montréal (AP).

• The State of Time, 2000, installation, Musée de la civilisation, Québec.

• Artériel, 2005, installation, Lausanne.

• Late Ba Pe: Perambulations in Reverse Archaeology, 2005, installation, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

• “Purely”, 2005, INRS, Québec (AP).
• Vastu Purusha, The Corporal Mandala, 2007, Museum of Religions, installation.

• Exhibition “I for… Icarus”, Saint-Denis, Réunion Island. February 2009:  (chief curator Laurent Segelstein, assistant Louis Pavageau aka Ligne Rouge).
• L’écho-l’eau, 2010 and 2011, four installations, Cité de l’énergie, Shawinigan

• trOmbe, 2011, installation, Montréal Biodôme.

• Vanitas, 2017, Roger Bellemare and Christian Lambert Galleries, Montréal

• Les fantômes, 2021, Mont-Laurier Exhibition Centre (AP).

• A Dental Abecedary, 2024, Roger Bellemare and Christian Lambert Galleries, Montréal. [12 -13].
• Divagations in 0, 2026, Laval Cultural Epicentre (AP).
• Divagations in 0, 2026, Laval Cultural Epicentre (AP).

References

External Links

« Richard Purdy – CCCA Canadian Art Database [archive] » (consulté le 21 janvier 2026).

Authoratative Notices :

VIAF

ISNI

BnF (données)

IdRef

LCCN

GND

Fine Art Resources:

MNBAQ

Union List of Artist Names

Portail de Montréal

Portail de l’art contemporain

Portail du Québec

Categories

Quebec artist

Born 1953

Place of birth Ottawa

Montréal Metro

External Links

Representation: Galeries Bellemare-Lambert, Montreal.

Artist's website