Graduated from L’École des Beaux-arts in France in 1977, Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec is a visual artist and professor emeritus at the University of Montreal (Canada). He was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, for his contribution to the artistic recognition of Landscape and Garden Design. In 2005, the Pierre Elliot Foundation awarded him the Research Prize for his innovative thinking, the scope of his scientific achievements and for his commitment to the Canadian society. Since 2017, he has been an elected member of the Academy of Arts, Letters and Human Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).
In addition to his academic career, Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec has been involved in several creative projects in garden and landscape design. This interest has always been fed by his own world of artistic experimentations which dates back to his training as a visual artist in the 70s and was confirmed in 1975 during his participation as an exhibitor at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (France).
During his university career, he occasionally returned to creation, notably in 1991 when he designed in collaboration with the landscape architect Claude Cormier, an artistic installation - Les Pruches, the Enchanted Forest - for the Montreal Bar Business (Canada) or, in 1993, when he was invited to design The Garden of Clouds, an ephemeral work for the City of Niort (France) as part of an international exhibition on the Art of Contemporary Garden. In 2012, while continuing his reflection on the Art of Landscape on an international scale, he created three striking installations and a film (Land Art _ Scarified Landscape) as part of the 2nd International Edition of the event Landworks Sardinia 2012 (Italy).
Combining his commitment as a teacher and researcher, and his multidisciplinary artistic practice, he has always been driven by the desire to widen horizons for the production and expression of the Art of Landscape. In 1999, he initiated and directed the Summer School of Contemporary Landscape and Garden design in Métis (Québec, Canada) to support critical and inventive thinking in this field. In 2000, he co-founded the Métis International Garden Festival (Québec-Canada) with Alexander Reford, Marie-Josée Lacroix and Denis Lemieux. From 2000 to 2003, he was the artistic and scientific director of this event dedicated to the renewal of the Art of Garden Design. Under his direction, this cultural event acquired a truly international reputation and won several awards of excellence.
Being now represented by Montreal galleries, Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec has fully reconnected with art by producing pictorial works which are part of public and private collections, both in Europe and in Canada.