"With a keen sense of digital aesthetics and the courage to embrace beauty, Petra Cortright gazes upon Appenzellerland – without ever having been there herself. The starting point for her new series is the image database of Appenzellerland Tourism AR, containing over a thousand photographs that reflect the visual self-image of a region that oscillates between staging and idyll. The artist was granted access on June 1, 2023. Cortright, one of the most important voices in digital painting, feeds these images into her personal archive of brushes, filters, and textures. This results in projections, textile glimpses, and, for the first time, works on wood – shimmering, multi-layered compositions reminiscent of Impressionist landscapes, but created entirely digitally. Her works are considered a contemporary counterpart to Monet: she paints quickly, directly, using software instead of paint. What emerges is a radical, distant view of one's own self – not critical, but loving: "For the first time, I can't make the pictures more beautiful," said Cortright in the Zoom call, "your reality is already too beautiful." A plea for beauty – and for a new way of seeing." - Zeughaus Teufen
This is Cortright’s museum debut in Switzerland.
