Petra Cortright’s digital landscapes blossom at Intersect Aspen

Local dealers make a strong showing at this year’s Intersect Aspen fair (1-4 August), with four Colorado-based galleries participating among the 31 exhibitors from across the country. One of the spaces making the longest journey to show at the Ice Garden is the Palm Beach, Florida-based gallery County, which will also have one of the fair’s only solo stands: a group of recent digital landscape paintings on anodised aluminium by the Los Angeles-based Net art pioneer Petra Cortright.

“We chose to exhibit a solo presentation because we felt the strength of Petra’s landscape works garnered a more in-depth viewing,” says Dalton Freed, the director of County.

The works range from single-panel compositions to a large triptych and depict landscapes rendered in greyscale but punctuated by accumulations of pastel-hued flowers. “I like to leave some edges and artefacts, especially digital artefacts,” Cortright has said. “For it to be an interesting build of a world, and to keep some sense of humanity, or the artist’s hand or touch, I have to leave those traces.” Each of the digital paintings is unique and priced between $60,000 to $160,000.