Biography:
Brad Copping is an artist and craftsperson living and working, since 1994, near Apsley, Ontario, just north of the Petroglyphs Provincial Park and the Peterborough Crown Game Preserve. He has been pursuing two distinct directions in his work.
Since his residency in the Glass Studio at Harbourfront Centre (91-94) Brad has been designing and making a series of award winning blown and carved glass vessels. These vessels have begun a process of abstraction, moving away from functionality towards something more expressive of the environment in which he lives. A piece from this ‘Burleigh Series’ was commissioned by the Royal Ontario Museum in the spring of 2001. His long running annual series of bottles commissioned by Inniskillin Winery for their ice wine was included in the Design Exchange’s permanent collection in 2000.
As a student in the Glass Studio at the School of Crafts and Design at Sheridan College (87-90), Brad established his path as a mixed media sculptor, working mainly in glass and wood, but also with paper, metals and found objects. This work has been shown primarily through Galerie Elena Lee in Montreal and through his association with the glass art collective ‘10 North’. His work was included in the Corning Museum of Glass, ‘New Glass Review (25)’ for the sixth time in 2004. In late 2005 the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts acquired ‘wellstone’, the second piece of Brad’s to be added to their permanent collection.
Brad is grateful for the generous support his work has received from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.