Couture, Renee. I am my own acreage, 2017. 2018 Individual Artist Fellow, Oregon Arts Commission.
Originally published February, 2018
Renee Couture received her MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, VT and BA in Studio Art from Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA. She has travelled extensively, working as a camp counselor, wild land fire fighter, gourmet goat cheese maker, international backpacker and bank employee. She moved to Oregon in 2004 after completing Peace Corps service in Bolivia.
Couture’s work has been exhibited nationally. Recent venues include Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, OR; Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland; Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; University of Nebraska, Omaha; and Umpqua Valley Arts Association, Roseburg, OR. She is the recipient of two Career Opportunity Grants from the Oregon Arts Commission and two Project Grants from the Douglas Country Cultural Coalition. Couture has been featured on OPB’s “Oregon Art Beat,” and has completed recent artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Djerassi Resident Artist Program, among others. Couture lives on seven acres in rural southern Oregon and teaches art at Umpqua Community College. “Using my own rural community as a starting point,” she says, “I articulate the complexity and range of the public’s relationships with the nearby landscape and how these relationships reshape over time.”
Courtesy of the Oregon Arts Commission.
Artist Credit: Renee Couture