Artist Louis Copt has been painting full-time since 1984. He received a BA in art from Emporia State University in 1971. He has also studied at the Art Students League in New York City and has taken classes in drawing and painting at the University of Kansas.
Louis has lived and traveled in Europe, In 1991, he traveled with the Kansas Geological Survey on a 16-day re-photographic expedition through the Grand Canyon as their official artist. Louis has led painting workshops to France, Spain and Italy. He has also hosted art travel programs to the Kansas Flint Hills, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, New York and Chicago.
Louis works with oil, acrylic, pastel and watercolor. He is also an accomplished photographer and figure painter. He has taught classes at the Lawrence Arts Center for over 14 years and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Kansas. Copt is a past board member of the Lawrence Arts Center, past President of the Lawrence Arts Commission and Lawrence Art Guild. He is also a past member of the Kansas Watercolor Society, Kansas City Artists Coalition and the Kansas City Barbecue society. His work has been published in American Artist Magazine and numerous scholarly publications including The Great Plains Quarterly. Copt has also exhibited work in national competitions such as the National Oil Painters and Kansas Watercolor Societies. His work is in several museum, corporate and private collections throughout the United States. Louis shows regularly in galleries and exhibits throughout the midwest. In 2011, he was named “Governor’s Artist” for the state of Kansas by the Kansas Arts Commission. Copt has also exhibited work in national competitions such as the National Oil Painters and Kansas Watercolor Societies. His work is in several museum, corporate and private collections throughout the United States.
In 2011, he was named “Governor’s Artist” for the state of Kansas by the Kansas Arts Commission. The rural landscape is disappearing. Over time, some changes have been gradual, others quite dramatic. Most of the changes are due simply to the passage of time. Barns fall down; trees grow up and land usage patterns change. Kansas one hundred years ago was depicted as a vast rolling plain devoid of trees and civilization. How would we know this if artists had not made a record of how things looked at that time? Because progress and growth are an inevitable part of human endeavor, my painting is an attempt to give the viewer a perspective on how much and how rapidly the landscape is changing. The time I spent in the Flint Hills in my youth has given me a profound understanding and appreciation of the value of the uninhabited space. Silence and solitude are underrated. As a boatman drops a stick in the water to gauge the movement of the raft, my painting freezes a bit of the present by which people in the future can measure the rate of progress or passage of time. I see myself as one who is documenting current history, so that in 50, or 100, or more years in the future someone can look at my paintings and say this is what Kansas looked like in the late 20th and early 21st century.