About — Couch in the Desert

Couch in the Desert is an online project collecting interviews, essays, images, and other material into a growing compendium of information about contemporary art connected to Southern Nevada. Couch in the Desert speaks to the transient and the performative, community and collaboration, our collective footprint on the desert landscape, and Las Vegas as a context for contemporary art practice and discourse. The blog features projects and writing by visual artist-contributors, and the site highlights cultural destinations in Las Vegas.

Couch in the Desert is the new iteration of Settlers + Nomads. Thanks for your patience as we update the website and reintroduce the project.

A collaborative work in progress, the original website, founded in 2015, assembled a curated roster of artists living and working in Las Vegas and an expanding list of artists, writers and thinkers who have passed through and contributed to the presentation and discussion of art in Las Vegas, Settlers + Nomads. Many of the “Nomads” were early contributors, reporting from locales such as San Francisco, Houston, Baltimore, and Dowagiac, Michigan.

Offline, Couch in the Desert organizes public events such as performances, screenings, exhibitions and discussions with local and visiting artists, aspiring to stimulate connections and conversation and increase the agency and visibility of the Las Vegas art community.

Las Vegas artists have been resilient and resourceful in the absence of the robust arts infrastructures that other cities have in place. Without a broad and diverse selection of art museums, galleries, local grant and exhibition opportunities and other support, Las Vegas artists have created community and culture through artist-run spaces and online projects, work as arts administrators, curators, educators, and organizers, and through advocacy for this place we call home.

Las Vegas, Nevada is located on the unceded lands of the Nuwuvi, Southern Paiute people.

Learn about the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe and the Moapa Band of Paiutes. Learn more about Land Acknowledgement and how to move beyond land acknowledgments to be in solidarity with Native nations.

CITD TEAM

Publisher, founder WENDY KVECK is an artist, educator and advocate. She has lived in Las Vegas for 20 years, contributing to the community in various roles as an artist, volunteer, gallery director and board member for non-profit arts organizations and institutions including the Contemporary Arts Center, Cultural Alliance Nevada, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, and, most recently, the grassroots artist organization Desert Arts Action Coalition. Kveck’s studio practice interrogates contemporary media and art historical depictions of women as markers of vulnerability and chaos through the mediums of painting, drawing, collage and performance. She currently teaches as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Art at University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she coordinates the MFA Program. Please send inquiries, art news, or content proposals to wendykveck@couchinthedesert.art.

ELLIE RUSH is an artist, writer, student, and CITD intern. She was born and raised in Las Vegas, and has created many local private and public artworks, including a mural for the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, utility box paintings at Bob Price Park as part of the Clark County ZAP! Project, a painting for the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine building, and utility box paintings in the Arts District as part of the City of Las Vegas AMP Program. Her studio practice involves mixed media art featuring watercolor, colored pencil, and chalk pastels, where she bases her compositions on collages made from her own photographic references. Her themes primarily include everyday life, internal wrestling, and the relationship between the individual and the universal. She earned her Associate of Arts in Art from the College of Southern Nevada, and is currently earning both her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art and her Bachelor of Arts in English. Link to her Instagram.

DANIEL SAMANIEGO is a Queens-based artist who creates fantastic and grotesque imagery to explore the interplay between private personas and public depictions of queer beauty. Through hyper-detailed depiction of witches, posing dandies, withered ‘hag’ masks, and seething soap opera divas, he hybridizes the beautiful with the grotesque and splices noir drama with campy excess to highlight queer difference. Select recent exhibitions include: Tight Ass: Labor Intensive Drawing and Realism at CB1 Gallery in Los Angeles (curated by Brett Reichman), and Plural at The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas. Samaniego holds an MFA in Painting from San Francisco Art Institute, and has been an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center and Soaring Gardens Artists Retreat. His project THE FILE , featuring studio visits, conversations and issues in new painting and drawing, is an S+N blog series.

Originally from Melbourne, Australia, D.K. SOLE has degrees in Literature and Film from Deakin University and the Victorian College of the Arts. She joined the Barrick Museum after moving to Las Vegas in 2012. Sole works in education and research, managing tours and writing many of the museum’s text materials. She curated the Barrick’s 2017 group exhibition, Play On, Gary, Play On. An artist who works with found objects, she has exhibited in Las Vegas and Denver, CO.

MIKAYLA WHITMORE is an artist and photojournalist working within the vast realms of photography, sculpture, and activism. In conversation with landscape, they utilize concepts of space & existentialism to convey their observations with the romanticization of the West, queer experience, and the appreciation of the sublime in the often mundane. Growing up in Las Vegas, and after obtaining their BFA in Photography from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2010, they have exhibited work both nationally and internationally. A recent project includes the upcoming Live in America Performing Arts Festival at the Momentary Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Their work can be found in various media, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN, and High Country News. Mikayla is a member of Women Photograph, a non-profit to elevate the voices of women* and nonbinary visual journalists; and a collaborator of the Mystery Ranch, an art and ecology research station located near Searchlight, Nevada. They are a S+N contributor and advisor.

Chronicling Contemporary Art in Las Vegas by Brent Holmes, Hyperallergic

Settlers + Nomads: Artist Wendy Kveck Launches Website Highlighting Contemporary Art in Las Vegas, by Kristen Peterson, Las Vegas Weekly

All content on this site is copyrighted by the respective artists and contributors.

@hollographic, in the first installment of our revamped series “What Are You a working On Now?,” shows us her recent series “Synthetic Realities,” through which she explores AI’s capabilities for and implications on art.

Former Las Vegas @theneonmuseumlasvegas artist in residence, and former CITD interviewee, @allisonwiesestudio shares a detail shot from a piece featured in “American Artists with Friends,” on view at @bestfriendsshowroom from Oct 28 - Dec

Las Vegas-based artist who recently had her work in @scrambledeggsxyz’s latest show, “Lucky Gut,” Mariah GW has some exciting new work to share!
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Repost from @mariah_gw:

“Passing of the torch”
Acrylic on Arches
12

Some detail shots from the UNLV Richard Tam Alumni Center (@unlv_alumni) gallery’s current show, “Small Fries,” featuring many @unlvfinearts BFA alumni! On view until Dec 8
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Catherine Jaggi
“Self Portrait with Green Hair

Indigenous artist Noelle Garcia recently spoke with “Seeing Color” podcast host Zhiwan Cheung about her background of growing up in a native community before coming to Las Vegas, and how that’s influenced her work. Listen to “

Some details shots from @scrambledeggsxyz’s latest exhibition “Lucky Gut,” which closed last week and was hosted behind @hastasiemprebooks in @thegatherhouse!
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Sabrina Solis
“Tú madre”
Mixed media on canvas

Las Vegas artist Krystal Ramirez recently spoke with “Seeing Color” podcast host Zhiwan Chueng about how her artistic journey was impacted by leaving Las Vegas. Listen to “Seeing Color” Episode 90: “Leaving Las Vegas (w/

UNLV Art MFA ‘23 Alum, Lyssa Park, recently installed a three-part piece titled “Mother Bird” in the Windows on First installation space at Las Vegas City Hall! On view until January 2024.
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“Mother Bird draws from a drea

Keeva Lough recently wrote about Kyla Hansen’s abstracted denim works featured in her exhibition “Hold Your Own” at NADA Gallery in New York. Now live on couchinthedesert.art, link in bio.
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“This openness is contrasted w

Detail shots from the dazzling “Reflections” show, a reflection-themed exhibition that closed this past Saturday (9/30). Curated by CITD contributor @mikaylawhitmore and presented by @ccpublicarts at @winchesterdonderoculturalcntr! 🪩
&bu

Excited to share this beautiful new work in progress from Yo Fukui!
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Repost from @yo_fukui_:

“150x150cmの作品を作っています。　青リンゴ/Green Apple 🍏”
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Shizuoka-based artist Yo Fukui is an ‘08 UNLV Art MFA Alum who works primarily in

Some detail shots from the gorgeous exhibition “Hija/e/o/x(s) de Su—,” curated by @vaqueronopalero and @ylasIlaves in collaboration with the Las Vegas-based artist-run collective @scrambledeggsxyz, and the Indigenous non-profit orga

Repost from @e_a_ferguson
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Morning Glory
Pigmented plaster on paper
22”×15”

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Opening tonight! 9/16
@pazofineart EPICENTER with myself @richardtinkler and @ssmoniker

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Epicenter will be

Daniel Samaniego, “SIEVE,” 2020, graphite on paper, 30” x 22”
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Congratulations to @danielmsamaniego for being part of the Spring/Break Art Show, which closed last week. Samaniego’s work was part of a group project

$D.K. Sole wrote about Audrey Barcio’s exhibition Sight\Line at the Studio at Sahara West. The exhibition is on view in Las Vegas for a few more days through August 26. You can read the piece on our blog, link in our bio. “Their movement$

D.K. Sole wrote about the exhibition Judith G. Klausner: (de)composed at the Windmill Library gallery. Read the post on our blog (bio in the link) and scroll down for info about tonight’s virtual discussion with the artist moderated by Jessica

D.K. Sole wrote about New York based artist Fay Ku’s exhibition, Spettacolo, on view last month at Available Space Art projects. Link in our bio.

“The evasiveness contrasted with the appearance of performance that was a large part of th

Aluminati, “Love Letters to the Future” 2022.
Thank you to Emily Budd for sharing this writing about your inspired research and the collaborative community-focused foundry project you’ve cultivated with your students at UNLV, &ldqu

Thank you to Brent Holmes for this interview with Justin Favela about his recent Las Vegas exhibition Fantasía/Fantasy on display at Nuwu Art Gallery and his upcoming monograph coming this summer. Read the full interview “Radiant Return,

“A rainbow breaks thru the sky while driving on the US-95S on November 08, 2022. Seen while I was in between assignment coverage for the US 2022 Midterm Elections, it compelled me to throw on my hazard lights and pull off the highway to ph

ACCESSIBILITY

Couch in the Desert is committed to facilitating the accessibility and usability of its web content for all individuals. If you have any questions or concerns about the accessibility of any part of this website, please contact me at wendykveck@couchinthedesert.art. If you do experience accessibility issues with respect to this website, please specify the issue and relevant URL in your email for our reference.