Between an Islet, Island and Strait

Matthew Couper
Sept 6 – Sept 29

Opening Reception: Sept 6th, 7pm – 11pm
4633 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90027

Aotearoa/New Zealand-born artist Matthew Couper exhibits his recent work, reflecting on the isolation of his early life in the South Pacific and his Covid quarantine in the Mojave Desert, while re-evaluating life with a fresh perspective in a post-Covid era. His paintings and drawings portray deserted psycho-scapes and enigmatic, sea-encircled islands dominated by makeshift survival tools and shelters. This psychological space—both within the artist’s mind and on the canvas—represents a non-specific location, a blend of past and present places, and an ever-evolving vista of a self-created paradise. Couper re-appropriates the automatism of Russian Non-objective painting to create a visual representation of anthropocentric echo chambers as an immaterial process. and the The term ‘desert-island’ not only bridges Couper’s remote homes through his art but also evokes the inner states of social isolation experienced during periods of intense external population growth.