ABBY is a work centered on idealism, both human and environmental. Placed within the landscape of a prototypical enchanted forest, replete with mushrooms, sparkling shafts of light, and a unicorn, are two female figures dressed in beachwear, to whom the viewer’s eye is drawn through their direct gazes and that of the unicorn who moves directly toward the couple. In this fantastical space, Cortright composes a world saturated in constructs of purity, all of which are embedded in the flora and fauna of the landscape.

ABBY is a digital painting on hot press rag paper mounted on dibond.

At the center of American artist Petra Cortright’s practice is the creation and distribution of digital and physical images using consumer or corporate software. For Cortright, the Internet provides materials, making techniques, and a platform for viewership of her digital work, which is also manifested physically through materials ranging from aluminum to silk. Cortright’s digital paintings, created using Photoshop, exist within these two realms as a reflection of the artist’s interest in the varied processes and possibilities of digital and printing methods of production.

Petra Cortright (b. 1986 in Santa Barbara, California) has exhibited both nationally and internationally at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Austria, and the Venice Biennale, Italy. Her work is held in the permanent collections of MOCA Los Angeles, MCA Chicago, and Kadist, Paris, among others.