Louis Copt | Landscape Visions of Kansas | LMH Healing Arts Collaborative, West Campus

Visit the LMH West Campus at 6265 Rock Chalk Drive to admire works by local artist Louis Copt!

For over 40 years, Louis Copt has been photographing and painting the Kansas landscape, particularly the area surrounding Lawrence. Over the years, there have been many changes in the rural landscape, some 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. The Kansas we see now is quite different from the Kansas of one hundred years ago. Many early photographers and painters accurately showed the area as a vast rolling plain devoid of trees and civilization.

How would we know what the area looked like if these photographers and artists had not recorded how things looked at that time? Their role was to document and present a vision of what existed. Progress and growth are an inevitable part of human endeavor. We cannot expect things to stay the same always. However, one of the ways we can gain a perspective on how much and how rapid change takes place is to capture a moment in painting or photography. As a boatman who drops a stick in the water to gauge the movement of the raft, the artist freezes a bit of the present by which people in the future can measure the rate of progress or passage of time. Louis sees himself as one who is documenting current history so that in 50, 100, or more years in the future, someone can look at his paintings and say this is what Kansas looked like at the turn of the 20th century.

Artist Biography

Artist Louis Copt was born on January 29, 1949, in Emporia, Kansas. Spending time on a farm as a child and growing up near the Kansas Flint Hills had a profound effect on Copt and has translated into his passion for landscape painting. He graduated from Emporia State University in 1971 with a degree in art. Copt began his career as a full-time artist in 1985 after returning from a summer of study at the Art Students League in New York City. He has worked with some of Kansas’ most notable artists, including Jim Brothers, Robert Sudlow, Robert Green, Robert Brawley and Stan Herd.

Louis’ current work focuses on the prairie in just about every season, but particularly the annual spring burn-off in the Flint Hills. His primary medium is oil on canvas, which allows him to work on a larger scale and provides the depth and color that best translates to his particular vision. He is fascinated by the challenge of capturing the force of nature as the fires race across the prairie, renewing the landscape for yet another season. Through painting, Copt inspires viewers to see the landscape in ways they may not think about. By isolating images often taken for granted, viewers see the landscape in new and different ways and find new appreciation for what surrounds them.

In 2016, Louis was the featured artist in the Lawrence Arts Center’s Annual Benefit Auction. His one-person exhibition showcased a series of new works featuring contemporary paintings and cast glass sculptures of Kansas barns. He has recently completed several large-scale outdoor murals in Lawrence and Manhattan, Kansas.

Louis’s work has been featured three times in The Artist’s Magazine and three times, he has won the award for Top Finalist in the Landscape Division. He has also been featured in American Artist Magazine. His work has also been featured in the scholarly publication American Art Review. In 2011, he was named Kansas Governor’s Artist. His work is owned by private collectors nationally, and he has executed several regional public commissions as well as having his work included in the Kansas State University’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. Louis has taught at the Lawrence Arts Center for over 25 years and has led travel and painting workshops in France, Spain and Italy. He occasionally teaches drawing and painting classes at the University of Kansas. Louis has served on many arts organization boards and is active in several community service projects.

LMH Health West Campus Gallery

6265 Rock Chalk Drive

The gallery is located on the Second Floor near Forward Coffee Shop.

Open for public viewing:

Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

This collaboration between the Lawrence Arts Center and LMH Health is made possible through a grant provided by the Kansas Creative Arts Industry Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.