Marsha Cottrell
Cottrell works with a computer and an electrostatic laser printer, which she began experimenting with as drawing tools in 1998, in the context of long hours as a magazine office freelancer. At that time typing and manipulating elements of written language like commas, brackets, and periods, Cottrell developed a body of intimately scaled works that reference written language, musical notation, nature, and architecture. Sifting through a growing body of digital documents by means of a multidirectional and improvisational process, Cottrell would insert elements of her “drawings” into this archive, the reorganized and recycled debris finding its way into new images. Over time, the introduction of lines, shapes, and other vector-based elements resulted in “virtual rubble,” a massive accumulation of raw material manifest in dense compositions, mark-splattered pages, and cosmos-like arrangements of white marks and lines, a reversal which highlighted the toner’s rich carbon and iron-oxide black.
Each image is centered around a strong horizon contained by window-like borders, and a distinct quality of natural or artificial light emanates from each work. These, as well as the Interior images—improvised meditations on light and space charged with psychological intensity—develop slowly and gradually on the paper via multiple passes through the printer while …
Cottrell works with a computer and an electrostatic laser printer, which she began experimenting with as drawing tools in 1998, in the context of long hours as a magazine office freelancer. At that time typing and manipulating elements of written language like commas, brackets, and periods, Cottrell developed a body of intimately scaled works that reference written language, musical notation, nature, and architecture. Sifting through a growing body of digital documents by means of a multidirectional and improvisational process, Cottrell would insert elements of her “drawings” into this archive, the reorganized and recycled debris finding its way into new images. Over time, the introduction of lines, shapes, and other vector-based elements resulted in “virtual rubble,” a massive accumulation of raw material manifest in dense compositions, mark-splattered pages, and cosmos-like arrangements of white marks and lines, a reversal which highlighted the toner’s rich carbon and iron-oxide black.
Each image is centered around a strong horizon contained by window-like borders, and a distinct quality of natural or artificial light emanates from each work. These, as well as the Interior images—improvised meditations on light and space charged with psychological intensity—develop slowly and gradually on the paper via multiple passes through the printer while geometric shapes are incrementally moved on the screen.
Solo exhibitions include Petra Rinck Galerie in Dusseldorf, Henry Urbach Architecture in New York, g-module in Paris, Derek Eller in New York, and Revolution Gallery in Detroit. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as Whitney Museum of American Art, The Drawing Center in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield. Cottrell has received fellowships and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; in 2013, she received a Biennial Award from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Eleven Rivington, New York, NY
Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany
