27th January - 4th March
Petra Cortright - Void Mastery / Blank Control
PRESS RELEASE:
The Composing Rooms is pleased to present Petra Cortright in her first solo show in the UK and the inaugural exhibition of the 2012 residency: THE GREEN ROOM.
Petra Cortright creates digitally rendered paintings and internet conscious web-cam works utilising easily accessible digital elements.
Cotright’s Void Mastery / Blank Control series interferes with a preconception of painting. Upon inspecting what one may assume to be painterly brush strokes and layered paints the eye instead captures millions of pixels. Photoshop Layers and Masks are applied to found images that are disturbed and distributed throught the work replicating movement and mixing from the traditional painters technique and palette.
By embracing new technology and digital elements such as outsourced imagery and bold colour schemes, Cortright is, as Paddy Johnson describes; “exploring what makes it special.” For Johnson, what distinguishes Cortright from traditional painters using new mediums, such as David Hockney is that “Digital drawing tools can’t replicate a handmade mark, a reality that artists like Cortright embrace. ”
In comparison, Paul Chan has described how Cortrights’ video works deal with “disinterest” - a symptom of mass culture’s interaction with technology, her web-cam works address “intellectual and aesthetic impoverishment, which is perhaps the truth of reality today”. Throughout her performative videos she remains disengaged with her audience whom by contrast become eerily captivated.
Cortright’s works have been exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at Preteen, Mexico [2011 & 2010] and GLORIAMARIA, Milan [2010]. She has a solo show in at Club Midnight, Berlin (September 2012) and group exhibition E-Vapor-8 curated by Francesca Gavin at 319 Scholes, New York (May, 2012). Past group exhibitions include: Banal Inferno - Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow [2011], New Wave - The Internet Pavilion, Venice Biennale, VVork Show - Munich; Treasure Room (Loshadka) - Light Industry, New York and Endless Pot of Gold CD-Rs (Nasty Nets) - Sundance International Film Festival [2009].
The artist has also participated in panel discussions devoted to the subject of internet and video art, most recently in: web.video the new net.art? at Transmediale Festival Berlin [2012]; Emerging Trends in Internet Art, presented by Rhizome.org, SXSW Festival [2011], and “Net Aesthetics 2.0” at the New Museum [2008]. Petra studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She is currently based in Santa Barbara and has produced works whist living in Berlin, New York and Tokyo.
THE GREEN ROOM
Rich Mix 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road London, E1 6LA
Open Sunday 12 - 5 and by appointment.
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