Petra Cortright: Pale Coil Cold Angel

The solo exhibition by Petra Cortright features works in 2D, 3D, and video. The artist will present stone sculptures for the first time in the form of three works carved from white Carrara marble, and a six-metre wide quadriptych will be the largest painting by the artist to date. A video installation is the latest in her “painting video” series. Cortright is a twenty-first century painter using contemporary tools. The Los Angeles-based artist is a celebrated member of a diffuse group known as “post internet” artists, who explore the effect of digital culture on the development of fine art. After a series of critically acclaimed webcam performances distributed on YouTube, the artist consolidated her practice by using Adobe Photoshop to make paintings using brushes and images mined from internet search engines. Her use of platforms like Pinterest subverts traditionally gender normative content such as flowers and interiors, freeing this imagery into expansive digital landscapes. The title of the show is also drawn from search terms used online. A final painting is a captured still from a master file that could be modified endlessly, so while her two-dimensional objects are static, they suggest dynamic change in reference to their source.