Philippe Dupiereux was born in 1944 in Hatiere, a small town in the Mouse Valley in Belgium. Around 1960, he began to produce his first oil paintings with knife-strokes; the subjects were masks and seacapes.
In 1962, he finished his studies at the Fine Arts College in Namur. In 1966 and 1967 he attended courses in the Famous Artist’s School of Amsterdam.
From 1966 to 1970 he worked in advertising. In 1970 he setted in Spain where he still lives today. His last twenty years or so have been devoted entirely to painting.
Until 1978 he continued to paint using a knife and taking as his subjects the Spanish landscapes, villages and characters that he found so fascinating. In edition to the oil canvas, he began to work more and more with watercolours.
In 1971 he made his first visit to the region of Almeria, whose landscapes and light were a revelation transposed to many of his paintings.
In 1972 he discovered the Canary Islands, which for many years were an unfalling source of inspiration.
In 1978 he gave up the knife and turn to the brusch, composing surrealist-inclined subjects or smaller wooden panels. His technique became cleaner, with gentler colours and no trace of brush-strokes. After a year, he left wood for canvas painting, but this time he prepare it specially so as to obtain a smooth support and a larger size. Throughout these years he travelled widely in search of new themes – to North Africa, the United States an Nordic countries.
Between 1984 and 1987, he dedicated almost exclusively to watercolours, which he worked on and perfected during his travels as well as in the studio.
In 1986 a trip to India proved a very rewarding experience for his watercolour work, particularly in terms of the choice of shades.
It was during a trip to China in 1987 that the first became attracted by non-figurative art and was influenced, among other things, by Chinese calligraphy.
He produced his last sketches and watercolours and then, in 1988, made a definitive transition to abstraction with a misture of collage and graphic techniques on paper or canvas.
If his stay in China caused that radical change, 1993 marked the transition, the next step on the stairway of his life, towards a transformation not as brutal as the preceding but slightly more subtle… he moved into an old home in the heart of a small village, quiet but lively, called Finestrat. He walked from a retired countryside life, to one in a rural community, warm and sharing, in a way a big family. Unnoticing, the need to run around the world started to hide and his curiosity towards being and things in this village started to show; he had, close by his hand, an unlimited source of inspiration. Interestingly enough this discovery, this ‘revelation’, brings him a little bit of the serenity he always lacked; his new surrounding was giving him what he always looked for: the essential.
A great part of his work since 1993 shows the concept of trilogy: work, object, title.
Work: a mix of ‘collages’ and painted materials highlighted by graphemes.
Object: “little things” forgotten or disposed of, that offer themselves to his eyes as arrow shots and which he takes into his work, not as useless decorations but as icons for the expression of ideas, small ‘totems’ full of humanity.
Another aspect of his work is photography. This means for self-expression which always fascinated him and practiced in parallel, was once again introduced in his ‘collages’. His two passions come together at that moment and he decides to exhibit them in the same exhibition; 20 painting from his ‘Angel’ series are a special example where the work ‘collage-materials’ is substituted by a ‘photomontage’. It has o be mentioned that the subject “Angel”, an uncommon character, required the use of photography. The temptation is too big and he took the step. Another step in his long walk towards his return to the essential… very far still from the end.
In fact, that photographic exploration into the human being provoked in him the desire to portrait it not only through the camera lens but also using his brushes and paints, giving birth to what was titled “Máscaras” (Masks). Why Masks? Because they are facial expressions and screams, rebellion and desperation, exaggerated expressions of what we have inside and don’t dare to bring out, a way of exorcising the demons that possess us, as is reflected in African masks. As a matter of fact his 2002 exhibition, after a trip to Senegal, would be its realization, not only through the mask, but also through the elegant movements and colorful clothing of the Senegalese women.
During 2005 he worked enthusiastically on a new subject: the tin toys from Payá, a factory in Ibi, remembered dearly by lots of Spaniards. He made about thirty photomontages and big format pictures, witnesses of the glory years of the toy industry in Alicante. These works were shown on a big exhibition inside the factory facilities, to celebrate its 100th anniversary. That same year, this exhibition was taken to Burgos, in the ‘Real monasterio de San Agustín’ (a monastery) and in 2006 it was shown in the ‘Colegio Territorial de Arquitectos de Alicante’ (Architect’s guild in Alicante).
2007. His last exhibition: “Valle de Rodalquilar” can be found in the ‘Carmen the Burgos’ exhibition hall in the village of the same name. This village is in the municipality of “Parque Natural Cabo de Gata”. The exhibition consists on 41 works around the subject of gold mines and their influence over the inhabitants of this valley during the 20th century.