Petra Cortright - Void Mastery / Blank Control 

Petra Cortright, Void Mastery / Blank Control (01), 2011

T H E C O M P O S I N G R O O M S

Is pleased to present Petra Cortright in her first London Solo show and the inaugural exhibition for THE COMPOSING ROOMS 2012 residency: THE GREEN ROOM.

Private View: 6 - 9pm 27th January 2012

Exhibition runs until 4th March

Open Sunday 12-5 and by appointment.


The Composing Rooms is pleased to present Petra Cortright in her first London Solo show and the inaugural exhibition of the 2012 residency: THE GREEN ROOM.

Petra creates painting and video works from the bedroom of wherever she is, whether it be Berlin, Tokyo, New York - or often at home with her ‘mom’ in Santa Barbara where her dogs and mom sometimes interrupt, or become part of her videos.

The video works are charming and what Paul Chan describes as “disinterested” - a symptom of mass culture’s interaction with technology; “intellectual and aesthetic impoverishment, which is perhaps the truth of reality today”. Cortright delivers her webcam video art alongside the “most hit” on youtube incorporating “over the counter” software that often distort her image... throughout her performative videos she remains disengaged with her audience.

Petra’s painting works are digitally rendered, using specially designed brushes and/or standard sets that come with programmes such as photoshop. The new medium has recreated painting as acrylic paint did for abstraction. The works from Void Mastery / Blank Control are simultaneously powerful and feminine, embracing digital elements in a playful manor - including outsourced imagery and bold colour schemes.

Petra Cortright (born 1986), Santa Barbara, California has shown widely including solo shows with GLORIAMARIAgallery, Milan [2010] and Preteen, Mexico [2011 & 2010] and group shows including; Banal Inferno - curated by Benjamin Fallon, CCA, Glasgow, Sister Sister City, Curated by Lindsay Lawson, Thomas Solomon Gallery , LA, Do I Know You, Inman Gallery, Texas and Surfing Club, plug.in gallery (now: House of Electronic Arts) Basel [ all 2010], No Hay Banda, Reference Gallery, Virginia, 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 [all 2009].

Petra studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and California College of the Arts in San Francisco and has participated in panel discussions including Emerging Trends in Internet Art, presented by Rhizome.org. SXSW Festival [2011] and “Net Aesthetics 2.0” at the New Museum [2008].
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