Nevada Arts Council hosts artist’s talk, reception with Matthew Couper

A reception and artist talk featuring NAC Fellow and Las Vegas artist Matthew Couper will take place at the Nevada Arts Council’s OXS Gallery in Carson City from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Sponsored by Smith’s Food & Drug Stores, Inc., the talk begins at 6:15 p.m. The event is open to the public and free.

Couper’s exhibition, “From Dust to Water” has been featured at the OXS Gallery since May 21, and will remain in place until July 13. The OXS Gallery is located at 716 N. Carson St., Suite A, in Carson City. It is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission is free.

In his exhibition, “From Dust to Water,” the Las Vegas-based Couper uses the language of symbols – skeletons and cacti, blenders and playing cards – to combine pictorial elements in witty and incisive visual narratives.

Social commentary is the emphasis in the Couper’s works, and he often uses Las Vegas iconography to get there, but these artworks aren’t just about the Valley. Their surreal content addresses bizarre phenomena in an increasingly post-humanist, globalized culture.

This artwork was created between 2011 and 2017 and includes paintings influenced by Spanish Colonial art. The scale ranges from miniatures to large-format pieces, mainly oil on canvas, metal and paper, along with wood block prints, mixed media works and lithographs.

Couper graduated with a painting Fine Arts degree in New Zealand in 1998. In 2003, he was awarded a Royal Over-Seas League International Scholarship to work and travel in the United Kingdom.

He received an Artist Fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council in 2018 and was awarded an Arquetopia Artist Residency in Puebla City, Mexico which resulted in a large state-wide survey exhibition in 2016 and 2017 at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. He recently completed an Artist Print Residency at Idem Paris and an artist residency at Manoir du Bonhere, Normandie, France.

Managed by the Artist Services Program at the Nevada Arts Council, the OXS Gallery is located at 716 N. Carson St., Suite A, in Carson City. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission is free.