Nature Morte
Petra Cortright, 1301PE Los Angeles
Petra Cortright rose to prominence, like many of her peers, in recent years because of a reliance on Internet sourced imagery and creating work with digital tools and software. In an age where technology and culture are becoming more intertwined, artists like Cortright reflect a picture of our bizarre society. Cortright has worked in a variety of mediums and dimensions, and her work doesn’t solely live on the Internet. However, her latest show Lucky Duck Lights Out at 1301PE in Los Angeles has her tackle a surprising subject: the painted still life.
Although Cortright has generally appropriated images and cues from the web, this is the first in a series where she has generated all of the material and subject matter herself. While this might not surprise you to hear that an artist sketched or photographed their subject matter, it is an interesting shift for Cortright. Per 1301PE’s press release, Cortright began this body of work by photographing the blooms in her garden. The results are bold, detailed, abstracted bouquets. Some are done in soft grey and blue, while others burst forward with vivid color and contrast. The most obvious reference would be of that to certain Dutch and Flemish still life painters (the gallery name checks Rachel Ruysch.) However, Cortright certainly didn’t produce these pieces with oil paint and stretched linen canvases; the artist used programs like Photoshop and developed different tools and brushes to create the still lives. The most interesting aspect of these works is not solely their surface-level imagery, but instead it is the tension between the image (historic) and production (contemporary.)
The production of art has changed radically in the past century, and even more so in just the past decade, but Cortright handles these new methods of working with apparent ease and aplomb. The artist’s approach to art’s loaded history in this exhibition is effective and intelligent. Instead of erasing history or retreating into the past, Cortright marries both the then and the now. The resulting, intriguing conversation in Lucky Duck Lights Out lies between that of imagery, history, production, and technology.
