Payson Courchesne Courses

Payson Courchesne is a renowned American sculptor whose work has won awards both in the United States and abroad. Courchesne has created large and small-scale sculptures focusing on the relationships between physical and psychological space as constructed in both land and sea. Through his work, he explores the language of gesture, abstraction and figuration, as well as issues of landscape, environment and technology. His works can be found in a range of permanent collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Courchesne is originally from Rhode Island and attended the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the Studio Arts College International in Florence, Italy. He has reimagined historical objects and sculpture for his works, like the “Totem” series of wooden abacus’ from the 1840s. He has also created monumental public works such as “On Memory,” housed in Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio. He has held solo exhibitions at Brandeis University, Boston, and Toronto’s Power Plant New Release Gallery. In 2008, he won the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture. Courchesne’s sculptures, drawings and videos act as an invitation to reflect on times past, and to consider how the physical environment shapes and is shaped by our experiences. He celebrates the beauty of nature and encourages us to respect and preserve our environment. He also emphasises the psychological components of his work, commenting that they invite viewers “to experience the spaces between seeming opposites, temporality and permanence, representation and abstraction.”