LUNES, EL TRES DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
My intaglio scraperboard work 'Origins' is on display at the 'Real New Zealand Art' exhibition, Federal Hotel Gallery, Cnr Taupo Quay and Market Streets, Whanganui, New Zealand 27 Sept -8 Oct 2011. I believe the exhibition is part of promotion for the RWC and is a selection of alumni from the Quay School for the Arts.

'Origins', 2011, incisions in ink on metal, framed, 220mm x 170mm / 8 3/4in x 6 3/4in

JUEVES, EL CUATRO DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
A pre-fired photo of my 'Devil on the Toilet' keepsake box. This image doesn't show the cistern attached, which is the keep sake box.

MIERCOLES, EL TRES DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
I've got three or four ceramic works in this upcoming exhibition
www.raynerbrothers.com

VIERNES, EL TRES DE JUNIO, VEINTE-ONCE
A short video of my ceramic 'Golgotha Wine Decanter' fresh out of the kiln. This work will be in an upcoming group exhibition at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, New Zealand in the latter half of the year.

MIERCOLES, EL UNO DE JUNIO, VEINTI-ONCE
It's been a long time without a post, this poor blog, but I'm now back in Las Vegas, Nevada and tidying up the loose ends of post-travel paperwork.

Over the last month, I had six exhibitions on at once, five group shows in Tucson, Arizona, Whanganui and Hastings, New Zealand; and two in Las Vegas, Nevada; and a solo show at PAULNACHE in Gisborne, New Zealand.

All went very well with good sales at my solo show 'Rites in the Meadows' at PAULNACHE and 'Pop-Gun at The Rayner Brothers Gallery, a nice mention in a review of the Creative HB Invitational at the Hastings City Art Gallery. I was very honoured to learn that I had gained second prize for my art work 'The Trickle-Down Theory' at the Contemporary Arts Center. A related work titled 'The Trickle-Down Effect' is on show at the Barrick Museum, UNLV campus, Las Vegas.


'Solutio Perfecta'
2011
Oil on metal
360mm x 280mm / 11" x 14"
Private Collection, South Island, New Zealand
exhibited in 'Rites in the Meadows' at PAULNACHE, Gisborne, New Zealand
©2011, Couper Russ Studios LLC

DOMINGO, EL OCHO DE MAYO, VEINTE-ONCE
There's been a bit of a lapse in posting due to traveling around New Zeland and limited access to internet connections but here's the next invitation to "Pop Gun" at the Rayner Brothers Gallery at 52 Guyton Street, Whanganui, New Zealand.

The exhibition opens on Friday the 13th of May, 2011 and features new art works related to pop music by Andrew Ritson, JK Russ, Mark and Paul Rayner and me. I'll be adding my works to my website by the opening of the exhibition and will be previewing a couple of works on my Artist facebook page.

SABATO, EL DIECINUEVE DE MARZO, VEINTI-ONCE
The photo, top-left, is a corpus-arm of a Crucified Christ statue that used to hang in the east chapel of the San Xavier Mission in Tucson, AZ. This is all that is left. It interested me as the rough wood skeleton is covered in canvas, then gessoed and polychromed. I knew that this was part of the process of making santos, but it's hard to see on complete forms. The saggy, torn canvas brought back memories of the skin surface of one of those bodies found in the bogs in a museum in the the UK. I also remembered a sketchbook drawing and a failed sculpture that I had made in preparation for my show at the Sarjeant in Whanganui in 2007. I had tried to recreate an arm out of cardboard and hot glue, nailed to wood with an ex-voto hanging off it. It didn't work, so I moved to casting in plaster, and the bottom left photo was the outcome. With molds, you can cast and recast, so I did a few variations on the dissected hand, looking at galvanisation, the power of the symbol of the hand. All these pics besides the San Xavier arm can be seen on the MOIV website here:
http://moiv.mattcouper.com/graveyore.html

MARTES, EL DIECIOCHO DE ENERO, VEINTE-ONCE
Painting problems. Usually, I can solve issues with paintings (the issues, if explained, would seem nonsensical and ridiculous, so i'll just say they're 'issues') through drawing - developing sketches and doodles from the original invention/drawing. Sometimes it's along time which helps resolve the problem. Time allows for clarity. But sometimes in a particularly tricky painting, such as the one below, I want it to be something that it is not. That is, an older painting from 2008 called 'Big Garden'. I painted Big Garden after returning from a 5 month trip around the USA and Europe. I actually started this blog on returning to NZ and you can see the painting in development in some of the early photos (that's Big Garden on the ground by Jo). That painting took 4 days to paint, without any prior drawings or sketches. I just knew what and how it needed to be painting. The work below that I've been nursing for 3 months and been through 3 incantations now and I've just painted over the third. I now saw what needs to come out of this painting and to involve the spirit of the original 'Big Garden' I'm going to attack the painting without any prior sketches and develop it in the canvas.

LUNES, EL VIENTE DE DECIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ

I've now got our Prologue website back up and running on the internet. I had it hosted on a free server which because a spammer's pitstop, so the site couldn't be shared on forums and along with javascript issue, I couldn't put it on my website hosted site asa subdomain. So with a quick fix of the pop-ups, I'm now hosting it on my domain server.
The website was intended as a co-catalogue (we printed a very limited edition hardcopy catalogue too) for the physical exhibition at the Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, NZ and contained about half to 2/3rds of our present collection.

DOMINGO, EL CINCO DE DICIEMBRE, VIENTE-DIEZ
I'm just getting ready to start a new painting. At this point, it feels like I've never painted before and I have no idea what I'm doing. I love that feeling. I have no fear of the starting of a painting though, the most painful aspect is the '3/4th finished' dilemma for me, because I expect the painting to be mostly finished, but then the anxiety sets in because I'm getting closer to completion, and often I struggle to assess whether it's finished or not. That's when I tend to find the original primer colour, remix it and scrape it over the painting with a spatula. It sort of bundles the whole painting up, then i can see a bit more clearly to what needs to be done and clarified to complete the work.
At present, I have Sassetta flying around in my head, so I'll be tapping back into his influence that I strongly felt while painting some of the big works in 2006/7

LUNES, EL VEINTIDOS DE NOVIEMBRE, VENITE-DIEZ
BEN CAUCHI-The Doppler Effect
December 4 2010 – January 28 2011
190 Wicksteed Street Whanganui 4500 NEW ZEALAND
www.mcnamara.co.nz

LUNES, EL UNO DE NOVEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
I was saddened to hear that Phill England passed away on Saturday. Phill was the amazing director and cameraman of The Gravy (amongst other things) and we met when he was filming the Whanganui episode of the series. I painted this ex-voto for the episode, for Ross Liew to fill in, which features Phill holding an excessively large camera with added ephemera attached it it.
RIP Phill.

JUEVES, EL DIECISEIS DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Some installation pics of JK Russ's collages at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, NZ
(photos courtesy of Mark Rayner)

MIERCOLES, EL QUINCE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
All About Eve opens at the Rayner Brothers Gallery, Whanganui, this Fri night (Thurs at 11.30pm in the USA).
Collages from JK, 3-D photos from Erin McNamara and sculptures from Lauren Lysaght!

JUEVES, EL DEICINUEVE DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-DIEZ
An installation shot of part of the Calendar Girls set at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, New Zealand. You can view all twelve calendar artworks on their website here and see the rest of the installation photographs here.
From left to right: Maiangi Waitai, Anthony Behrens, JK Russ, Peter Ireland, Mark Rayner, Matt Couper, Andrea Gardner, Paul Maseyk and Mark Braunias.
Each work is for sale and calendars are available for purchase at NZD$19.95 each.

MIERCOLES, EL ONCE DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-DIEZ
J K Russ' Calendar Girl, Miss January, now on show at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, New Zealand.
More information on the work can be found by clicking on the link above. This work shows the development of Jo's work from some of the collage works exhibited in 2008. But they also pick up on earlier monochromatic collage works developed in Auckland in 1998.

DOMINGO, EL OCHO DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Thinking about New Zealand today, especially Whanganui. It is our friend Al's memorial service at 9.30pm (USA time) today. Miss you Al.

LUNES, EL DOS DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I've posted this image before, but here's a photo of it with the frame included.
This painting, Miss April, will be exhibited as part of Calendar Girls, opening this Friday night at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, New Zealand. Twelve artists were asked to respond and portray a specific month of the year visually. For April, I used the symbols of April - the diamond, the sweetpea and then added the star sign, Taurus and Numa, carrying the sweetpea in a cart (he was the Roman Emperor who added January and February to the calendar, moving April to the forth month). Miss April is based on the androgynous figure that has the protection of a pater, yet the nurturing of a mater.

DOMINGO, EL UNO DE AGOSTO DE JULIO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I just received an invitation to Calendar Girls at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in NZ via email:

Rayner Brothers Gallery warmly invites you to the exhibition opening of 'Calendar Girls' and 2011 calendar launch this Friday at 5.30pm

The exhibition and calendar features works by:
JK Russ, Anthony Behrens, Mark Rayner, Matthew Couper, Rosalie Gwilliam, Maiangi Waitai, Ben Pearce, Peter Ireland, Mark Braunias, Paul Rayner, Paul Maseyk, and Andrea Gardner.

The limited edition calendar is only (NZD)$19.99 - so get your copy A.S.A.P.

It's going to be disappointing not to be able to make it to the opening, but I can't wait to see what the other artists have come up with. My calendar girl (Miss April) can be seen here, all framed up ready for the exhibition.
I'll post some installation shots once I get some via email.

JUEVES, EL QUINCE DE JULIO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Before leaving New Zealand, I got one of Paul Rayner's 'Jesus Saves' money-box crucifixes. It's an excellent to my crucifix collection, now numbering just over one-hundred.
The current Rayner Brothers exhibition, Cheesy Moulds is an exceptionally good show with a mix of mould works, teapots, photographs and money-boxes. A must-see if you're in Whanganui, New Zealand.