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 received her BFA from Alfred in printmaking and drawing and moved to Portland, Oregon in 1995.

Bee Statement
My work in the past few years has been a vague effort to record something wild and unseen about the form of animals; movement, life, the space between things. Shortly after hearing about the rapid disappearance of honey bees in our country (termed “colony collapse disorder”), I imagined a series of bee drawings. Displayed in the same erratic way that bees fly about, and conveying something of their importance or intrinsic value, my hope was that my effort to create these bees, would, in some way create more actual bees in the world. Since then, I have drawn and shown over 1000 bees, and the response to them has been both humbling and hopeful. I have no idea whether or not my drawings have actually helped the bees in any significant way (and/or helped us in the manner that all things are connected- we do, here, after all, depend on them to pollinate over 90% of our crops) but they have garnered more attention and inspired more conversation than anything I’ve ever done.