Matthew Couper employs diverse media and art historical genres to examine where culture, politics, myth, and religion connect. His recent work merges the symbolism of Spanish Colonial art with the American capitalist attributes of cities like Las Vegas, NV, where he currently resides. Exploring the rapid development of cultural currency within the machinations of corporate America, Couper depicts social and political viewpoints from the outside perspective of a recent immigrant. Rendered in various scales and materials, Couper’s cast of characters plays out narratives that could be deciphered in multiple ways. His more recent imagery takes many forms—desert island landscapes, moody skies enveloped in plumes of smoke, eyeballs crying decorative tears, nails, and Modernist constructions—that symbolize a turn toward social isolation during a dystopic and precarious moment in history. This viewpoint draws from the artist’s solitary lifestyle in the Mojave Desert, as well as in his birth country of New Zealand.