Anna Chemplayil's Prismacolor drawing "Empty Nest" sold for $10K at the HLSR Auction! Congrats Anna!
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Courtney's latest body of work, Metamorphosis, is on exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science Cockrell Butterfly Center from October 14 to December 31, 2013.
Courtney's students' work was recently featured on Culture Map, Houston Chronicle and Channel 11 KHOU. It will be on view at the Lawndale Art Center until November 9th. |
Via Colori 2015! Finally finished!
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Through a breadth of mediums and approaches, my work contemplates the desire for change. Ever elusive, change is a concept sought, but rarely defined. As a culture, we are currently obsessed with it. Born through never being satisfied in the moment, change constantly looks toward better times. Forward or back, there is always something better off in the distance. My own wishes to affect the changes of which I believe and my all too frequent futility act as my catalyst. In my work, these concerns are conveyed to the viewer through a number of channels.
I once saw pre-shucked corn-on-the-cob in the grocery store. Each of the four ears was placed in its own cubby in a plastic tray then wrapped in an additional layer of plastic emblazoned with ‘Disney Princess’ licensing. Now, each visit to the store, I seek these archetypes of wasteful, mindless consumption; I am rarely disappointed. I am delighted at the irony of produce rotting inside its plastic shroud. Working tangentially to the ‘still-life with fruit’ convention, small paintings of packaged fruit are sealed in seal-a-meal bags. In another series, unfixed charcoal drawings on paper were placed in zip-top bags and left to slowly deteriorate. Another investigation uses custom formed clamshell packaging. Impossible to open, ridiculously over-protective, clamshell packaging is humorously applied to common produce. Works such as these investigate the absurd redundancy and ubiquity of plastic packaging.
In another project, plastic shopping bags are methodically layered to create stalactite and stalagmite-like formations. These plastic malignancies invade a skewed domestic space. Walls angle inward, the ceiling lowers and baseboards cut into perspective reinforce the forced perspective. Within the work, a mechanized bellows breathes into the space. In this very large work, the detritus of our culture of single-use solutions collects and multiplies. I seek to make the abstract physical, to visualize a projected reality and to negotiate within my abilities and inabilities to affect change. In the work, the illusion that one may continue on forever is produced and rebuked.
The transformative nature of plastic makes it an ideal material to convey the fluidity of change. It acts literally and metaphorically as the subject of my investigations. Plastic shopping bags and packaging are the epitome of the very worst of our single-use consumerism. In these works, plastics act as the force in need of change.
In another body of work, small motors turn brass gears with attached appendages that reach around to scratch (and scratch into) its own or another motor’s back. Methodically, another work utilizes a silver stylus to draw lines in sand, then erases those lines. In one work, a patch of carpet is vacuumed until it is destroyed, the disarticulated fibers collected into an apothecary’s jar. In final work, a mechanized broom sweeps, grinding its handle against an abrasive. As the particles fall, the broom cleans itself up, continuing its own destruction. Cold, delicate and precise, my machines refuse human associations, focusing on their own futile mechanization.
I once saw pre-shucked corn-on-the-cob in the grocery store. Each of the four ears was placed in its own cubby in a plastic tray then wrapped in an additional layer of plastic emblazoned with ‘Disney Princess’ licensing. Now, each visit to the store, I seek these archetypes of wasteful, mindless consumption; I am rarely disappointed. I am delighted at the irony of produce rotting inside its plastic shroud. Working tangentially to the ‘still-life with fruit’ convention, small paintings of packaged fruit are sealed in seal-a-meal bags. In another series, unfixed charcoal drawings on paper were placed in zip-top bags and left to slowly deteriorate. Another investigation uses custom formed clamshell packaging. Impossible to open, ridiculously over-protective, clamshell packaging is humorously applied to common produce. Works such as these investigate the absurd redundancy and ubiquity of plastic packaging.
In another project, plastic shopping bags are methodically layered to create stalactite and stalagmite-like formations. These plastic malignancies invade a skewed domestic space. Walls angle inward, the ceiling lowers and baseboards cut into perspective reinforce the forced perspective. Within the work, a mechanized bellows breathes into the space. In this very large work, the detritus of our culture of single-use solutions collects and multiplies. I seek to make the abstract physical, to visualize a projected reality and to negotiate within my abilities and inabilities to affect change. In the work, the illusion that one may continue on forever is produced and rebuked.
The transformative nature of plastic makes it an ideal material to convey the fluidity of change. It acts literally and metaphorically as the subject of my investigations. Plastic shopping bags and packaging are the epitome of the very worst of our single-use consumerism. In these works, plastics act as the force in need of change.
In another body of work, small motors turn brass gears with attached appendages that reach around to scratch (and scratch into) its own or another motor’s back. Methodically, another work utilizes a silver stylus to draw lines in sand, then erases those lines. In one work, a patch of carpet is vacuumed until it is destroyed, the disarticulated fibers collected into an apothecary’s jar. In final work, a mechanized broom sweeps, grinding its handle against an abrasive. As the particles fall, the broom cleans itself up, continuing its own destruction. Cold, delicate and precise, my machines refuse human associations, focusing on their own futile mechanization.