Petra Cortright’s core practice is the creation and distribution of digital and physical images, using consumer or corporate softwares.
She became renowned for making self-portrait videos that use her computer’s webcam and default effects tools, which she would then upload to YouTube and caption with spam text. Cortright’s paintings on aluminium, linen, paper, or acrylic are created in Photoshop using painting software and appropriated images, icons, and marks. The digital files are endlessly modifiable, but at a “decisive moment” they are translated into two-dimensional objects. They become finite, yet their range of motifs and marks, and their disorienting perspectives and dimensions suggest dynamic change.
Cortright’s (b. 1986, USA) recent exhibitons include MCA, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz; SITE131, Dallas; 1301PE, Los Angeles; City Gallery, Wellington; Foxy Production, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Société, Berlin; and Depart Foundation, Los Angeles.
Public projects have included commissions from Frank Gehry Partners, LLP; Midnight Moment, Times Square Arts, New York, NY; Art on theMART, Chicago, IL ; and SketchedSpace in Seoul, South Korea.