Bio
Epiphany Couch (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist exploring generational knowledge, storytelling, and our connection to the metaphysical. By re-contextualizing mediums such as bookmaking, beadwork, photography, and collage, she presents new ways to examine our pasts, the natural world, and our ancestors. Couch’s work is unapologetically personal, drawing from family stories, her childhood experience, archival research, and her own dreams. She utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to create images and sculptural works that hold space for reflection, transforming from mere things into precious objects — intimate and heirloom-like.
Couch is spuyaləpabš (Puyallup), Yakama, and Scandinavian/Mixed European and grew up in caləłali (Tacoma, Washington) in the shadow of təqwuʔməʔ (Mount Rainier). She attended the Tacoma School of the Arts and earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Puget Sound. Her work has been shown at Oregon Contemporary (Portland OR), Gallery Ost (New York, NY), Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), and The Bellevue Art Museum Education Gallery (Bellevue WA), among others. She is a 2024 Studios at MASS MoCA resident, recipient of a 2024 Ford Family Foundation’s Oregon Visual Artist Fellowship, and a commissioned artist for Oregon's Percent for Art in Public Places. Couch lives and works in Portland, Oregon where she is a member of Carnation Contemporary Gallery.
Statement
“Based on the Yakama story of Chokecherry Sister and Huckleberry Sister, these works explore the depth of my relationship with my own sister as well as our ancestral lands. Each sister is represented as an European silhouette, yet instead of the mystery-inducing black paper often used for these portraits, each is cut from a photoprint of nature, referencing our critical connection with the land and water.”