Petra Cortright

Petra Cortright's (b. 1986, US) work is centered on the creation and manipulation of digital files, redefining contemporary painting by seamlessly bridging the digital and physical realms. Her compositions exist just as naturally on a canvas as they do on a Times Square billboard.

 

Using consumer and corporate software, Cortright distorts found imagery, continuously over layering with digital brushstrokes, crafting compositions that depict an abstract natural world - blossoming fields, dark clouds, and endless seascapes, all placed within multiple frames or architectural grids. These intricate digital works are rendered as physical works, printed on anodized aluminum, canvas, and glossy paper, resulting in works which appear both complex and dynamic, but which settle as harmonious, simple and aesthetic - true to Cortright's insistence that beauty itself can be the objective.

 

As a key figure in the 'Post-Internet' art movement of the mid-to-late 2000s, Cortright first gained recognition for her YouTube videos and online exhibitions before expanding her practice to include her distinctive, laboriously crafted digital paintings.

 

Cortright studied Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York (2008). Her work has been exhibited within significant public institutions such as Walker Art Center, Hammer Museum, and Whitechapel Gallery, and is included in the permanent collections of MoMA (New York), Pérez Art Museum (Miami), LACMA (Los Angeles), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Ny Carlsbergfondet, and many others. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.