Pierre Poulin was born in 1958 in Canada.
He began his athletic career in freestyle skiing at the age of 16. Between 1979 and 1984, he won six World Cup freestyle competitions and participated in many other high-level championships.
He moved to Lac-Beauport in 1990 where he has lived ever since. Each trip around the world brings him back to his hometown.
Pierre Poulin is one of Canada's freestyle skiing legends and, as such, was dubbed the "snow painter" in 2014.
It has been said that "he is the painter of the highest mountain peaks and, like skiing, he glides through the world of colour and life".
He became an outstanding coach, winning a gold medal for the Swedish women's team and another medal in mogul skiing for the men. Pierre Poulin is "a true circus character, as unclassifiable as his raw art, a man of vertigo and jumps in the world of acrobatic sports from skiing to diving".
It was in 1992, when his mother gave him a box of paint, that he became a painter. From then on, he embarked on visual arts with passion and conviction. He studies the power of light and symbols.
He vigorously transcribes their energy through intense, complex and inspired paintings. He began exhibiting in 1996 in Montreal and then in Quebec City.
From 1996 to 2000, he exhibited at the Harrison Gallery at the World Trade Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Between 2006 and 2009, he exhibited in the United States and in Toronto (Canada). In 2006, he entered the prestigious Cirque du Soleil Collection of Guy Laliberté.
The work is exhibited at the company's international headquarters.
In 2013, he became a member of the Guilde artistique de Lac-Beauport, then in 2014, he became a member of the Regroupement des intervenants culturels de la Côte-de-Beaupré which manages the Circuit des Créateurs.
2015 is a pivotal year for Pierre Poulin. He became a permanent artist at Galerie Zen, located in Lac-Beauport, a suburb of Quebec City. That same year, two television documentaries were produced about him and his work. He was also noticed by an art critic and theorist who took a close interest in his work. She put a label on what he did; Pierre Poulin made art brut. He is one of the rare Canadian artists who practice art brut, singular or unclassifiable art. In 2015, he created a series of paintings for the two-time World Cup freestyle skiing winner Yves La Roche - an old friend - with whom he will choose each of the works that will illustrate his book "Solide comme La Roche". A painting illustrates each chapter of Yves La Roche's book, published in November 2015, which recounts the life and the terrible accident of this athlete who, like Pierre Poulin, marked his era.
Pierre Poulin became a member of the Collectif International d'Artistes ArtZoom (CIAAZ) in January 2016 to reach another level in his career as a painter. He is indexed with the world's leading art market information company, ArtPrice, as early as February 2016 where a few works are listed for sale. Subsequently, in March of the same year, he joined Art Total Multimedia, an international artist agency and art gallery, to be represented internationally.
Text by HeleneCaroline Fournier, specialized editor, art theorist, art critic
