905 Hutch

"Consider, for example, The 905 Hutch. Here the West Coast cocooned but trans-Canada savvy Coupland explores the anti-Toronto sentiment that floats across the country but locates it, appropriately, in the metropolis' backyard. Elegant and spatially modernist, the maple credenza is partially covered with cigarette foil and boasts a poster of a smiling, toothless hockey star Bobby Hull. On top of the hutch is a partially scorched model of the city's iconic CN Tower. In an instant, Coupland marries middle class propriety with the creative recreation of the rumpus room and exactly captures the bored basement machismo of teenage boys and suburban longing." —excerpt from Michael Prokopow's essay, "Coupland's True North Strong and Free," included in the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything, published in 2014 by Black Dog Publishing and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Through a wide range of media including assemblage, installation, painting, photography, sculpture and quilts, Coupland has persistently investigated Canadian cultural identity, both benign and menacing. Using imagery and objects latent with symbolic meaning for Canadians, he delineates what it means to be Canadian, offering a “secret handshake” not easily understood by others.