Call for Entries

Call for Entries
Looking for Emerging Artists

Thursday, August 13, 2009

September 19th-October 19th, 2009, Annette Cords: "Cross-Coupling," opens at the Posie Kviat

Annette Cords: Cross- Coupling, running from September 19th-October 19th, 2009

October 10th, 2009, 5:00p.m.- 8:00 p.m.:
Artist talk and cocktails with Annette Cords and Mare Vaccaro: Join us for light snacks and cocktails; an evening with artists Annette Cords and Mare Vaccaro. Both Annette and Mare will do a small talk about their work and then there will be a chance to speak with them directly.

Cords' approach to painting is driven by a highly involved fascination with technology and science, in which she blends with an individual method of paint application. Her interest in systems and natural phenomena stem from her childhood in Germany and her father's influence as a high-energy physicist, "his world of science with synchrotrons, electromagnetic fields and sub-atomic particles traveling near the speed of light was fascinating and mysterious to me as a child." Annette Cords now explores the networked, interconnected world that surrounds us through the physicality of pigment and the application of process. Cross-Coupling, is inspired by a chemical term that refers to two different molecules reacting and combining to create a new one. Cords' work illustrates the import of individual processes of both natural and scientific elements, that cooperate within a contemporaneous environment in order to function.  At times, her pieces stray toward a forced mechanical minimalism, so much they have been referred to as "Agnes Martin on peyote."* This minimalism is supplemented by her artistic practice, a curious approach to painting, or a "surface printing" technique used by meticulously "stamping" with found objects with pigment and acrylic, which create gem-like, texture-paintings.   Seen from a distance, each painting evokes a digital world of pulsing networks and scientific imaging, though when viewed up close, reveal a sensuality and diversity. The intricacies and irregularities of lines and shapes indicate more than methodology, and bare aspects of unexpected impulse, converging an artistic mechanism with something more free. Cords describes her work, "some of the most interesting elements in my paintings occur in an unpremeditated and unforced manner, and result in intricate layers of visual information." The opulent, mosaic-like canvases reveal artistic spontaneity, yet intersect with a complex system of pattern and texture; she proposes these arrangements are akin to systems we live within today. All elements appear to work both independently and simultaneously to create an elaborate network and a visual whole. 

* Rosof, Libby, “Density Squared”, artblog, January 17, 2005

About the Artist
Annette Cords currently resides in New York City, and works out of her studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been at the A x D Gallery in Philadelphia (2008), Galerie Klosterformat in Rostock (2005), Germany, and at Austin Peay State University, in Clarksville, Tennessee (2001).