Born in 1946 in the lower-town of Ottawa, Gilles Lacombe studied at the Petit Séminaire d’Ottawa and the University of Ottawa from which he earned a Master’s degree in Lettres françaises in 1970 and a PhD twenty years later. Since 1991, he teaches at Ottawa University as a part time professor in the Département des Lettres françaises.

He is a self-taught visual artist whose work has been shown in Ottawa, Toronto and Québec. He has been represented by Calligrammes since the final years of the nineteen-seventies. Most of his works are on paper : ink drawings, pastels, watercolors, collage, mixed media. He is the author of many artist’s books, composed of his writings and the images accompanying them. These books were the object of an exhibition at the National Library of Canada in 1997 and some are now part of the National Library of Canada collection of artist’s books.

Gilles Lacombe is also a writer and poet, the author of a dozen books, mostly of poetry usually accompanied by his illustrations. Some have won prizes.