Petra CortrightBURNT UMBER BROKEN SILVER AMERICAN SPIRIT

Her latest ongoing series of paintings, titled BURNT UMBER BROKEN SILVER AMERICAN SPIRIT, created specifically for SOLOS, marks the beginning of an unfolding journey. Releasing two works per week indefinitely, Cortright invites her audience to witness the progression of her painterly exploration, which she describes as moving through a sequence of "rooms." Each "room" represents a transition to a new series, offering evolving insights into her ideas of what makes a painting a painting.

In this body work, Cortright presents uniquely crafted compositions of American landscapes overlaid with abstract shapes with some evoking her earlier Room series (2021). She describes these "rooms" as portals—symbols of transition between different states of being or consciousness—encouraging introspection and imagination.

Continually inspired by the nature of the American West, Cortright draws from imagery that resonates with the region’s landscapes, alluding to themes of freedom, conflict, and beauty. The juxtaposition of fires and idyllic scenery within her works serves as metaphors for the polarising aspects of life in America.

Her vibrant explosions of color and texture emerge from a relentless pursuit of digital tools. With a palette inspired by the candy-coated hues of early internet graphics, her compositions embody a collision between chaotic dreams and painted realities. Utilizing software like Photoshop, Cortright creates layered images that reflect the cut-and-paste ethos of the web, seamlessly merging stock images, digital brush strokes, and glitch effects into a distinctly personal aesthetic.

Cortright first gained recognition through her innovative experiments in video art, particularly with works such as vvebcam (2007), shared on YouTube. The significance of her early works lies in their use of accessible, everyday technologies intrinsic to internet culture. Rather than producing high-concept, gallery-ready pieces, Cortright embraced the raw, unfinished aesthetic of online experimentation, reflecting the democratizing effect of the digital landscape on art. In doing so, she questioned the very nature of authorship, recognizing that art was shifting from a singular, physical object to something that could exist as data—endlessly reproduced and reaching a global audience through the internet.

Cortright’s work has been acquired by prestigious institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).