PAULNACHE PRESENTS: MATTHEW COUPER - The Persistence of Blue

The Persistence of Blue @paulnache marks twenty years of collaboration between Matthew Couper and PAULNACHE — a relationship that has unfolded through thirteen solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions and art fairs, touring museum projects, and a sustained conversation about what painting can do.

Since first exhibiting MythMaker in 2006, the gallery has accompanied Couper’s practice through its many turns: from Wellington and Whanganui in Aotearoa / New Zealand to the Mojave Desert in the American Southwest, from intimate drawings to large canvas installations, from colonial histories to ecological anxieties. This exhibition gathers works spanning nearly three decades, from 1999 to 2026, drawn from PAULNACHE’s own holdings and inventory of the artist’s work. It is both an exhibition and an archive, a portrait of a practice seen through the accumulation of time.

Seen together, the works in The Persistence of Blue reveal an artist less interested in stylistic consistency than in…