Artist Statement
In the past couple of decades, Iāve gone from thinking that there are two kinds of bees (Honeybee and Bumble) to being completely awe-filled and astonished by the fact that there are somewhere around FOUR THOUSAND bee species on our continent alone. The intricate web of creatures and growing things that makes up the support system that carries us and the rest of the planet through our daily lives is far more complex and interconnected than we could ever grasp. It is mind-blowing to me; as is how careless and ignorant we can be as a species. Art is my way of trying to wrap my brain around all this, to call attention to what I can, and to keep myself in a state of humble learning about it all.
Drawing for me is sort of a meditative act of reverence; noticing not just the form and details of something, but the way it is; how it moves in space, how it breathes, how the air is around it. Charcoal on paper gives me simple, immediate access to this work, and the high contrast of black and white strikes a chord in me, especially in moments of desperation; something about necessity and survival. In Werner Herzogās film āCave of Forgotten Dreamsā, about the oldest found cave paintings (Chauvet Cave in France), one of the researchers theorized that the paintings (many of which are in charcoal) were done in a kind of ritual of spiritual awe and appreciation of the animals around them that both gave them life and took it. I love that idea; because I think it is this kind of bringing the creatures around us inside that helps us both appreciate and understand them and our own place in the world.
About April
April Coppini was born and raised in a wooded suburb of Rochester, New York. She attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1990 and Alfred University, School of the Arts from 1991-1994. She spent a summer semester at CurĆŗ National Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica, researching primate ecology (the effects of farming on White-faced Capuchin populations) with the School for Field Studies. She received her BFA from Alfred in printmaking and drawing and moved to Portland, Oregon in 1995. April works at her home studio in NE Portland, where she lives with her three kids, two dogs and elderly cat, obsessing over bees and anything else wild that comes into her yard.
