Petra Cortright

Biography

Petra Cortright, born in 1986 in the United States, is a California-based interdisciplinary artist recognized as one of the pioneering figures of the Net Art and post-internet art movements. She first gained widespread attention in 2007 with VVEBCAM, a video in which she recorded herself with a webcam while cycling through the device's built-in visual effects and filters, then posted the result to YouTube. The work, now held in institutional collections including the Museum of Modern Art and Rhizome's net art archive, became an early landmark for artists using consumer software and self-broadcast platforms as an artistic medium. Cortright continued exploring webcam self-portraiture and browser-based video for years, eventually expanding her practice into painting, working with digital brushes and image-editing software to create dense, layered, brightly colored compositions that she prints onto canvas, aluminum, and other physical surfaces. Her work bridges the gap between screen-based digital imagery and traditional painting, often built from found and generated visual material such as clip art, gifs, and video stills. Cortright has exhibited internationally, including a large-scale, multi-channel installation of her early webcam videos shown at Art Basel, and her work is included in major museum collections. She has also collaborated with other artists, including James Whipple. Beyond her studio practice, Cortright has described her style as relaxed and distinctly Californian. She remains an influential figure connecting early internet-based art to contemporary digital painting and NFT art.