Marsha Cottrell
The Deliciousness of Staying Still, 2015
Laser toner on collaged paper, unique
Framed Dimensions:
86 x 147 3/4 inches
218.4 x 375.3 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Untitled, 2021
Archival pigment on digital ground on paper, unique
Framed Dimensions:
17 2/5 x 22 2/5 x 1 2/5 inches
44.2 x 56.9 x 1.9 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Environments_6, 2017
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 x 8 1/2 inches
27.9 x 21.6 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Landscape (Radiating), 2017
Laser toner on paper, unique
8 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches
21.6 x 47 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Hands_2, 2018
Laser toner on paper, unique diptych
11 x 8 1/2 inches each
27.9 x 21.6 cm each
Marsha Cottrell
Untitled, 2017
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 x 8 1/2 inches
27.9 x 21.6 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Black and Light, 2019
Installation at CAM Raleigh, 2019
Dimensions variable
Marsha Cottrell
Aperture Series (56), 2017
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 11/16 x 18 1/8 inches
29.7 x 46 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Untitled (2:02:35pm), 2016
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 5/8 x 18 1/8 inches
29.5 x 46 cm
Marsha Cottrell
​Gray Matters, 2017
​Installation view at Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University
Marsha Cottrell
Environments_4, 2017
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 x 8 1/2 inches
27.9 x 21.6 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Aperture Series (42), 2016
Laser toner on paper, unique
11 1/2 x 18 1/4 inches
29.2 x 46.4 cm
Marsha Cottrell
Installation view, 2016
Anthony Meier Fine Arts
"By including, and even encouraging, accidents in her​ ​process, by emphasizing the​ ​inherent characteristics of her tools and medium, even as she​ ​pushes them to their limits, Cottrell suggests that she is searching for a resolution—between​ ​body and machine, nature and technology, mind and body—that may never be found. Instead,​ ​she gives form to the search itself."
- Rachel Federman, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at The Morgan Library & Museum
Marsha Cottrell was born in 1964 and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Cottrell received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988 from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA. She then received a Masters of Fine Art degree in 1990 from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Marsha Cottrell is a recipient of the 2019 Anonymous Was A Woman Award; the 2013 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Biennial Award; the 2007 Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Fellowship Grant in Drawing; the 2004 Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Educational Grant; the 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts, Fellowship Grant in Drawing; the 2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fellowship; the 1999 New York Foundation for the Arts, Fellowship Grant in Digital Arts; and the 1999 Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Space Program.
Marsha Cottrell’s monochrome abstractions transcend the quotidian office computer and printer used in their making. In playful exchange with her chosen medium, the artist nudges mathematically defined lines and shapes grabbed from the software’s tool palette across the field of the screen, registering the intangible information in multiple passes of carbon-based toner using a laser printer as one might a paintbrush.
There is no corresponding digital file for each unique image; instead, the paper is the canvas onto which each decision is materially preserved. Translucent layers of ultra-fine dust are fused with heat and pressure, interacting with the subtle coarse texture of each handmade sheet to create rich, tactile surfaces. Cottrell’s inventive process embraces—and runs in opposition to—an analytical working environment originally designed to speed productivity and increase the volume of output. Schematic vector information gives way to space and light, resuscitating the corporeal.
Cottrell has had solo exhibitions at Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA; Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, Raleigh, NC; Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY; Eleven Rivington, New York, NY; g-module, Paris, France; Gaga, New York, NY; Henry Urbach Architecture, New York, NY; Petra Rinck Galerie, Dusseldorf, Germany; Revolution Gallery, Detroit, MI; Site Galerie, Dusseldorf, Germany and Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY.
Recent group exhibitions include The Way We Are 3.0, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany, 2021; Together In the Round, Presented by Anthony Meier Fine Arts & Jessica Silverman Gallery at 1969 California St, San Francisco, CA, 2020; By Any Means: Modern and Contemporary Drawings from the Morgan, The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY, 2019; Worlding: Lucas Blalock, Marsha Cottrell, Ben Hagari, Ajay Kurian, and Hayal Pozanti, Organized by Mia Curran, University of Western Michigan, 2017; The Actual, Eleven Rivington, New York, NY, 2014; schwartz // weiß, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin, Germany, 2013; Flowery, Petra Rinck Galerie, Dusseldorf, Germany, 2013; One-Third White, Kunst im Tunnel (KIT), Dusseldorf, Germany, 2013 and Field Conditions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, 2012.
Selected public and corporate collections include The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Francis Yang Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Grafische Sammlung, Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Neuberger Berman LLC, New York, NY; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Pfizer Inc., New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX; Progressive Corporation; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
Marsha Cottrell and Zoe Leonard are included in "The Way We Are 3.0" at The Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany from 20 March 2021 - 23 January 2022.
Marsha Cottell will deliver Mary Baldwin University’s 2020 Firestone Lecture in Contemporary Art on 16 March 2020 at 7 pm.
In her work, Cottrell repurposes the functionality of an electrostatic office laser printer, computer, and screen, and inventively utilizes the tools’ capabilities to create luminous images in layers of carbon-black toner. Her seemingly alchemical process gives material form to an open-ended exploration of the tensions and interplay between nature and technology, body and machine, exterior and interior in images that evoke visionary or dreamlike states, nature, and the sublime.
The Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC is pleased to present a solo exhibition, entitled Black and Light, of new work by Marsha Cottrell this summer.
The Morgan Library & Museum is pleased to present the group exhibtion, By Any Means: Modern and Contemporary Drawings from the Morgan, with works by Marsha Cottrell. The exhibition will be on view from 18 January through 12 May 2019.
Contemporary approaches to drawing are often experimental and expansive. By absorbing and building upon the legacy of avant-garde experimentation in the first half of the twentieth century, artists from the 1950s to the present have pushed beyond the boundaries of traditional draftsmanship through their use of chance, unconventional materials, and new technologies. By Any Means brings together about twenty innovative works from the Morgan’s collection, including many recent acquisitions, by artists such as Marsha Cottrell, John Cage, Sol LeWitt, Vera Molnar, Robert Rauschenberg, Betye Saar, Gavin Turk, and Jack Whitten.
Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present a group exhibition with new works by Marsha Cottrell, 1 August - 30 August 2018. The group exhibition explores multidisciplinary approaches to depicting forms found in or related to the natural world. Featured historical and contemporary artists include Hilary Berseth, Marsha Cottrell, TM Davy, Jeronimo Elespe, Tom Fiars, Judy Fiskin, Joe Goode, Voliker Huller, Ellsworth Kelly, Cameron Martin, Douglas Melini, Valeska Soares, Hedda Sterne and Kevin Zucker. Spanning almost 60 years (1960-2018), works on view encompass painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture, and demonstrate pictorial strategies ranging from photographic to nearly abstract.
Marsha Cottrell's practice is centered around manipulation of the quotidian office computer and printer. Bridging drawing, printmaking, painting, and photography, Cottrell's process produces luminous images that allude to celestial bodies and interior landscapes. As in Untitled (9:49:46am) (2018), her works meld the sensuality of the corporeal with the enigma of the intangible.
Van Doren Waxter is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new work by New York artist Marsha Cottrell. Titled Screen Life, the show will be on view from March 8-April 21, 2018 at the gallery’s 195 Chrystie Street location. The exhibition will feature three unique large-scale platinum prints and an array of intimately-scaled works created with a computer and electrostatic laser printer.
Petra Rinck Galerie is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Marsha Cottrell.
8 September - 4 November 2017
Marsha Cottrell will be included in the group exhibition, NYPOP Emerging Curatorial Series IV: Worlding, at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts at Westrn Michican University.
Marsha Cottrell will be included in Heliotropes a group show curated by Matthew Nichols at Geary Contemporary, 9 June - 15 July 2016.
The word “heliotrope” names at least two particular things in the world: a popular garden plant that turns its purple flowers toward the sun; and a mirrored instrument once used by land surveyors to reflect sunlight across long distances. As the title of a summer group show, the word is being creatively misread to encompass an array of visual motifs that address the sun and explore its numerous attributes.
Marsha Cottrell and Michael DeLucia will be included in Summer Exhibition at 11 Rivington, 8 June - 29 July 2016.
