Media Release

Lawrence, KS, January 20, 2011 – Louis Copt, one of five Kansans named as recipients of the 2011 Governor’s Arts Awards, will discuss his working methods, materials used, and philosophy in choosing subject matter during a 6:30 PM painting demonstration in the Central Court of the Spencer Museum of Art on Thursday, January 27. The event is free and open to the public.

“I’ll be painting an oil on canvas landscape,” Copt says. “I just basically want to have a conversation with people so they have an opportunity to see a painting in progress. A lot of times the only time people see finished art is in a gallery or museum, and they never see the process. So with the demonstration, I hope to bring them into the process so they can witness the thought process, materials, and methods that go into making a new work. It should be fun.”

Copt is perhaps best known for his masterful landscape paintings of the Flint Hills—particularly of the prairie when it is burning. Copt graduated from Emporia State University (located, not coincidentally, on the edge of the Flint Hills) and as Review magazine writer Steve Brisendine noted in a review of a recent show at Kansas City’s Leopold Gallery, Copt clearly knows the land intimately.

Copt's fire pieces carry a sense of cyclical renewal rather than one of destruction,” Brisendine wrote, “even as the flames leave swaths of scorched earth in their wake. There is a serenity to each painting — a feeling that there is nothing to worry about, that all of this has happened before and will happen again. And then, yes, there are the flames. Copt has nailed the look of a grass fire, as well as that of a glowing Kansas sunset ... another sort of conflagration, if you will, and one that's also difficult to replicate with paint.

The evening event at the Spencer offers a wonderful opportunity to watch Copt in action and share in an intimate discussion of his creative process. The Emporia Gazette announced his Arts Award selection with the observation that “Louis Copt doesn’t have to travel far to find inspiration for his artwork. He lives near Lawrence, and he said all he has to do is take a drive on a country road to see a hundred different things he wants to paint.”

Since 1974, the Governor’s Arts Awards have been presented annually to distinguished Kansas artists, patrons, and arts educators. An expert panel selects the honorees, and the awards are given by the governor and the Kansas Arts Commission. This year’s winners will be recognized at a reception and awards ceremony from 6 to 8 p.m. March 3 at Washburn University.