Spiced Diamond Pool Earn 4x Points
Petra Cortright
March 15 - 31, 2021
ENGLISH SPITFIRE_gold/coins/sovereign/british_key lime pie, 2021
Digital painting on anodized aluminum
48 x 78 3/4 in (121.9 x 200 cm)
COUNTY is pleased to present Spiced Diamond Pool Earn 4x Points by Petra Cortright.
Petra Cortright grew up on the water in Santa Barbara, California, and has always been enthralled by the vastness of the ocean and by the extraordinary colors of the coastal light. Her latest Seascapes pieces are twenty-first-century odes to the sea that combine the expressive potential of lyrical painting with digital photomontage techniques.
Cortright’s Seascapes use Internet-sourced photographs of rocky coastlines and grids inspired by classic fill patterns from photo editing software. By overlapping these images and grids at multiple scales, the artist achieves astonishing illusions of texture and depth. Cortright then paints with custom digital brush tools, often pulling the colors of the background images into the foreground, as if the clouds and waves and rocks themselves were as malleable and blendable as paint. Debunking the stereotype of digital artworks as cold and unfeeling, Cortright’s Seascapes are full of passion and vitality, and they represent a visually and emotionally complex engagement with the natural world.
Cortright’s energetic brushstrokes suggest the physical exhilaration of swimming in a choppy surf, as well as the contradictory feelings of restless joy and tranquility that her ocean scenes call forth. Over the years, Cortright has learned to use computer processing lag to generate specific distortions in her brushstrokes and to use those distortions expressively. “I like to leave some edges and artifacts, especially digital artifacts,” she says. “For it to be an interesting build of a world, and to keep some sense of humanity, or the artist’s hand or touch, I have to leave those traces.” By composing with intentionally imperfect, processed, and distorted elements, Cortright also allows her painterly virtuosity to shine. Her compositions are the artifacts and traces of performances as complex and dynamic as the sea itself.
Cortright’s early Internet-based video pieces, such as VVEBCAM (2007), now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, had a visual simplicity and deadpan wit that was reminiscent of the work of Bruce Nauman and John Baldessari. Since then, Cortright’s work has become increasingly complex, visually and emotionally, and she has found herself engaging with the natural world with greater sincerity and directness. The Seascapes in the present exhibition are some of the artist’s most technically accomplished and expressive works to date.
Petra Cortright is a prominent American digital painter. Selected exhibitions include: “.paint,” MCA, Chicago, IL (2020), “The Body Electric,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; “I Was Raised On the Internet,” MCA Chicago, IL; Nahmad Projects, London, UK (solo) (both 2018); Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekaterinberg, Russia; 1301PE, Los Angeles, CA (solo); City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (solo) (all 2017); Ever Gold Projects, San Francisco, CA (solo) (2018 and 2016); "Electronic Superhighway,” Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Carl Kostyál, London, UK (solo) (both 2016); Foxy Production, New York, NY (solo) (2017 and 2015); The Metabolic Age, MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; “On YouTube. Kunst und Playlists aus 10 Jahren,” Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland; “Im Inneren der Stadt,” Künstlerhaus Bremen, Germany; Depart Foundation, Los Angeles (solo) (all 2015); Société, Berlin, Germany (solo) (2016 and 2014); Frieze Film, London, UK; 12th Bienniale de Lyon, France (both 2013); Preteen Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico (solo) (2011), and the Venice Bienniale, Italy (2009).
Cortright’s works are included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Péréz Museum, Miami; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MOCA Los Angeles; Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology; MOTI, Breda, in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MCA Chicago; Kadist Foundation, Paris, San Francisco; BAMPFA, Berkeley, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; MOCA Los Angeles; and Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology, New York.
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