Petra Cortright | Art Now LA | Jody Zellen
“Petra Cortright is a master at manipulating digital files and incorporating stock digital effects. She seamlessly moves back and forth between creating animated and printed images and is as adept with programs like Photoshop as she is with compositing video footage. Cortright first came to prominence in the mid 2000s for webpages filled with low-brow animated GIFS appropriated from a wide range of online sources. She was also celebrated for short video performances captured by her computers webcam and posted to YouTube where they were available to stream, as well as purchase for a price based on their number of views. In many of these purposely manipulated, kitschy and campy performances, she posed for the camera to act out ‘girly’ fantasies. The poster for her current exhibition, Predator Swamping, is a fragmented image of her looking suggestively out at the viewer and alludes to those more performance-based works. Instead, Cortright presents digital paintings based on appropriated photographs of the landscape, many of which are incorporated into wall-sized tableaux.”