Dale Devereux Copeland (born 1943) is a New Zealand collage and assemblage artist. Copeland's work is about "society's detritus" and reworking "discarded things" into art. Copeland, who is also a community art organiser, is called "the backbone of the Taranaki art scene" by the ''

Taranaki Daily News The ''Taranaki Daily News'' is a daily morning newspaper published in New Plymouth, New Zealand. History The paper was founded as the ''Taranaki News'' on 14 May 1857, by friends of former Taranaki Province Superintendent Charles Brown.J.S. ...

.''

Career

Copeland lives and works in

Taranaki Taranaki is a regions of New Zealand, region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano Mount Taranaki, Taranaki Maunga, formerly known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the ...

. She has a studio filled with found objects connected to her house near

Ōkato Ōkato is a small town in rural Taranaki, New Zealand. It is situated about 25 minutes drive around the coast from New Plymouth on New Zealand State Highway 45, State Highway 45. Ōakura is 12 km to the north-east, and Warea, New Zealand, ...

. Copeland is part of an artist collective in rural Taranaki called Virtual TART, and which shows their work online through the Virtual TART site. In the late 1990s, Copeland created the International Collage Exhibition and Exchange art show. In 2009, Copeland earned three Special Recognition Merit Awards for her art in the 8th Annual Summer All Media Juried Online International Art Exhibition. In 2011, Copeland and other Taranaki artists exhibited their work at the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. The next year, Copeland was appointed a

Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit () is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have ...

in the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours, for services to the arts. In 2013, Copeland released a book, ''Complex Numbers in Graphs'', which is about her exploration of chaos theory in a visual medium. She and eleven artists showed their work in Paris in November 2014. In 2015, she was involved with the restoration of a

naval mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive weapon placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Similar to anti-personnel mine, anti-personnel and other land mines, and unlike purpose launched naval depth charges, they are ...

which was installed as a public sculpture in

Port Taranaki Port Taranaki is a port complex located in New Plymouth, New Zealand. It is the only deep water port on the west coast of New Zealand, and is owned by the Taranaki Regional Council. The port handles a wide range of coastal and international ...

. Copeland, and several other Taranaki artists, showed their work in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in May 2017. The exhibition was called ''Art Taranaki – de retour à Paris'' and shown at Gallery 59, Rue de Rivoli. In 2019 she and 3 others took an exhibition of Taranaki Art to Terre Verte Gallery in Cornwall, UK. At her grading in November 2023, at the age of 80, she became a Taekwon-Do Master.

References

External links

Official site

Interview with Dale Copeland
(2011 video)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copeland, Dale 1943 births Living people 20th-century New Zealand women artists Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit Assemblage artists People from Taranaki 21st-century New Zealand women artists Collage artists Women collage artists Mixed-media artists