Details:

For these artworks, loosely based on a series by Hans Jean Arp titled "Law of Chance,” the artist first makes “rocks” by layering melted crayons into vivid sculptural masses akin to geologic formations. The artist then uses these objects as performative tools, leaving chance trails of polychromatic impressions on the canvas surface. A childlike theme of “play” is evident through the use of materials like brightly-colored felted wool and melted crayon.
Unframed
Signed

① Artwork:

Untitled (Law of Chance)

For these artworks, loosely based on a series by Hans Jean Arp titled "Law of Chance,” the artist first makes “rocks” by layering melted crayons into vivid sculptural masses akin to geologic formations. The artist then uses these objects as performative tools, leaving chance trails of polychromatic impressions on the canvas surface. A childlike theme of “play” is evident through the use of materials like brightly-colored felted wool and melted crayon.

Courtney Childress needle-felts wool roving and handmade yarn onto canvas. By using a unique tool with barbed needles, she stabs through layers of brightly colored wool and unprimed canvas, tangling the wool fibers through the surface, creating a halo of soft fibers that appear to grow from the substrate. Childress applies the wool primarily on the wrong side as a way to offer chance outcomes. Through this process, the forms and objects appear to grow out of the surface of the canvas.

Specs:

15 inches
20 inches

③ Artist:

Courtney Childress

Courtney Childress needle-felts wool roving and handmade yarn onto canvas. By using a unique tool with barbed needles, she stabs through layers of brightly colored wool and unprimed canvas, tangling the wool fibers through the surface, creating a halo of soft fibers that appear to grow from the substrate. Childress applies the wool primarily on the wrong side as a way to offer chance outcomes. Through this process, the forms and objects appear to grow out of the surface of the canvas.

Courtney Childress was born in 1982 and lives in New York City, NY. She received her MFA from SUNY Purchase College in Purchase, NY (2012) and her BFA from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL (2008).

Childress has mounted solo exhibitions at Deanna Evans Projects in New York City, NY (2023) and Massey Klein Gallery in New York City, NY (2021).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Dimin in New York City, NY (2023); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany (2020-21); SPRING/BREAK in New York City, NY (2020); and Mrs. in Maspeth, NY (2018).

She recieved a City Artist Corps Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2021) and an ACE Grant NYC from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2018).

Courtney Childress:
Untitled (Law of Chance), 2022
Crayon and wool on canvas
20.0 × 15.0 inches /