DOMINGO, LOS DIECISIETE DE ENERO VEINTE-DIECISEIS

A new collaborative work between myself and JK Russ titled 'The Release', 2016, collage and oil on metal, 14” x 11”. We usually start with a regular-sized piece of aluminum that I commonly work on, I'll paint a standard backdrop in oil, then hand it over to JK Russ and she finds collage elements to place on the backdrop. After JK has finished, we talk about the images, configuration of forms and placement then talk about what is the best way to complete the work in oil paint. The best works or examples are the one that find a perfect conflation of our ideas and signifiers.

VIERNES, EL DIEZ DE AGOSTO, VEINTE DOCE

MATTHEW COUPER : DESERT INVENTORY -- COLLECTING CONTEXT IN LAS VEGAS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4fa_D8loYM

Film by Eric Minh Swenson. Music by Mountaineater

Los Angeles filmmaker Eric Minh Swenson traveled to Las Vegas to visit New Zealand-born artist Matthew Couper, who recently immigrated to the USA.

In his apartment in Las Vegas, Couper's collection of religious Spanish Colonial paintings from Mexico provide a rich cache of narrative and allegory that inform the artist's reactions to his new and unique environment. Over the past two years, Couper's paintings have collected and collated visual and psychological symbols of Las Vegas, culminating in a hybridized form which Huffington Post art writer John Seed suggests is 'a pagan Catholic Cirque du Soleil', accentuating the artist's 'Kafkaesque view of the world'

For more info on Eric Minh Swenson or project inquiries visit his website  www.thuvanarts.com/take1

JUEVES, EL DOS DE AGOSTO DE VENTE DOCE

Just before disassembling my props today, I thought I'd get a photo of my 'Polemical Alchemy' set-up in reference to an 1895 photograph of James Ensor in his studio:

"...The polemical assertion of the act of painting as a subject of aesthetics is more interesting than formalities of visual representation manifested by painting. We live in a digital age, where we could easily create graphics and visual aids through computer software and hardware yet the persistence of painting is still a mystery or perhaps an alchemy. Like James Ensor's paintings of death skulls/bones come to life or Matthew Couper's paintings about turning shit into gold, the alchemical power of the very act of painting is undeniable - transforming material entity into a metaphysical state..." - Jevijoe Vitug

JUEVES, EL DIECISIETE DE MAYO, VEINTE-DOCE

Kazimir Malevich as Joseph Beuys with a little help from Albrecht Durer:

MIERCOLES, EL CATORCE DE DECIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
I'm stealing these pics straight from Jo's art blog (as I'm in one of them) on the Miami Art Fairs. We've been away for two weeks in Miami, and then onto Texas (Houston, Austin and Fort Worth) to check out galleries and specific exhibitions, such as the Caravaggio exhib at the Kimbell in Fort Worth.

MIERCOLES, EL NUEVE DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
John Seed of The Huffington Post has published an article on my paintings, practice and context:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/matt-couper-painter_b_1080307.html

DOMINGO, EL VEINTICINCO DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE ONCE
four years apart, first in 2004 with my friend Matt, then in 2008 with Jo. In the Brancacci Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Masaccio and Masolino's fresco cycle of the life of St Peter, executed in the 1420s.

LUNES, EL DOCE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
uncanny: de Chirico on the left - 'Metaphysical Interior', 1916 and Guston's 'Rain', 1975. The de Chirico is a hard image to track down, I've only ever seen black and white repros of it in two books, one of them being James Thrall-Soby's 'The Early Chirico' which, according to Guston's daughter, Musa Mayer in her biography 'Night Studio' was "...a book always at hand on my father's shelf...".

MIERCOLES, EL SIETE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
One more day before Andrew Graham Dixon's new book on Caravaggio is released in the USA:
http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/book/readBook/14

A Short doco, updated from his original one a few years back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v_FAijXpDc

reviews on the book:
http://www.3pipe.net/2010/09/interview-andrew-graham-dixon-on.html

MARTES, EL TREINTA DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
A Mexican tin nicho frame, given to me by my friend Frank X Cordero from Santa Fe. The frame had a piece of newspaper in the back of it, folded over and teared, but with a date of 1910 on it. The paper perhaps had a reproduction of a saint on it, possibly La Preciosa Sangre de Cristo, or Nuestra Senora de la Luz.
I started a scraperboard-type work for this frame several months ago and have finally finished it. It's a reverse image of Durer's Melencolia engraving from 1514, in an attempt to reverse melancholy.

SABATO, EL SEIS DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
(left) Lorenzo Monaco 'Man of Sorrows with Instruments of the Passion', 1404, tempera on panel, Accademia, Florence, Italy, (right) Matthew Couper, 'After Lorenzo Monaco's Man of Sorrows', 2005, pencil on paper, 7" x 4 1/2".

I did this drawing while doing some relief teaching for a friend who'd broken both wrists in a bike accident. I'd come across a black and white reproduction of the painting and really liked the relationship of the figures in the shallow space compared to the apparitions of the symbols of the Passion, more so than my other favourite of Fra Angelico's fresco in San Marco. I finally got to see this painting in the Accadamia, Florence in 2008

MIERCOLES, EL VIENTE DE JULIO, VEINTE-ONCE
I knew of Scully's interest of Spanish painting but never felt it as... much as when I saw his 'Wall of Light Horizon' with the earth tones over the red bole primer, so evident in Spanish Colonial painting from the Baroque period.

Six months after seeing Scully's painting at the De Young, I revisited Goya's 'Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago' at the Getty and instantly thought of the Scully - the saturations and values of the colours and the use of the warm light from the red bole primer penetrating through the top layer of heavy earth tone colours. His title, an oxymoron, also lends itself to the painters constant battle with illusion, allusion and space in and on a painting - the horizon of course being an example of a concept that exists in our minds, you can't ever reach a horizon as it shifts constantly in relation to where you are positioned in space; as apposed to a 'wall of light' which talks of the picture plane, but with something behind it emanating a light. These ernest questions in Scully's work about the history of painting played out as abstract paintings interest me so much that, for me, they hold a strong force of energy and knowledge that makes me want to keep looking at them.

Left: Sean Scully, 'Wall of Light Horizon', oil on linen, 2005, deYoung Museum, San Francisco; middle: detail of 'Wall of Light Horizon'; Right: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, 'Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago', 1804, oil on canvas, Collection of the Getty, LA.

JUEVES, EL CARTORCE DE JULIO, VEINTE-ONCE
I was very taken recently by a new painting on the Colonial Arts website, owned by James Eddy. The painting (on the right) is titled 'The Nothingness of Man', c.1700's (http://www.colonialarts.co​m/products/sk) and the central skeleton figure with the figure captured in its ribs sparked off a memory of the work it is probably based on. I found it yesterday in Hermann Hugo's Pia Desideria (Divine Addresses) which was published in 1628. I'm aware of other example of this biblical ribcage jail motif, but I think it is in a book that's in storage in NZ. On my facebook page, I put together a folder of images called 'Influences of Spanish Colonial Art on Contemporary Painting', which looks at the lineage of imagery borrowed from the Spanish Colonial period by Enrique Chagoya, Manuel Ocampo, Fred Stonehouse, Frida Kahlo and Alex Chavez. The images below will probably be the offshoot of the above research.

VIERNES, EL OCHO DE JULIO, VEINTE-ONCE
Yesterday I took my usual LA pilgrimage out to Historia Antiques in Santa Monica and met up with James Caswell to discuss all things Spanish Colonial... it usually goes on for quite a while but is always absolutely inspiring and illuminating.
Here's a photo of some of my paintings in his store amongst ecclesiastical paintings.

SABATO, EL DIECIOCHO DE JUNIO, VEINTE-ONCE

JUEVES, EL DIECISEIS DE JUNIO, VEINTE-ONCE
http://www.mattcouper.com/devotionalinvite.html
http://mattcouper.blogspot.com/2009/05/viernes-el-veinteseis-de-mayo-dos-mil.html

MIERCOLES, EL QUINCE DE JUNIO, VEINTE-ONCE

MARTES, EL CATORCE DE JUNIO, VEINTE-ONCE
http://www.mattcouper.com/hmvdog.html
http://www.designboom.com/history/nipper.html

VIERNES, EL QUINCE DE ABRIL, VEINTE-ONCE
detail from Bosch's 'Death of the Miser' in the Nat. Gal. Washington DC.
I've seen this work before in the flesh, but hadn't studied it long enough to notice the pencil marks outlining unpainted forms on the shelf depicting part of the miser's material wealth. The rest of the painting has many initial sketchmarks, showing a longer arrow as held by death, the volumous toning for the curtains and some minor compositional changes. I haven't read much about the 'plastic' aspects of the painting, but it's quite odd to see so much sketching and thin paint layers remaining on a 'finished' Bosch painting, especially in comparison to his impasto paintwork on the works I've seen in the Prado. Anyway, what was interesting was that I started noticing pencil marks in a few other paintings, most noticeable in Raphael's small Cowper Madonna, where he's redrawn the position of the shoulder and veil.

SABATO, EL VEINTISEIS DE MARZO, VEINTE-ONCE
A great little ex-voto that piqued my interest in Albuquerque at John Isaac's Antiques store in the historical area. It's got everything, aesthetically, that I like in an ex-voto, the pinky/cadmium scarlet floor, the soft blue sky and the beautifully crafted vision of Christ.
Things have been a bit hectic at my end due to several things need attending too, so that explains the lack of posts. Once cleared, I'll post the offending pieces here on the blog to catch you all up!