Cowansage combines graphic abstraction with trompe l’oeil figurative realism, creating paintings that play with our perceptions of perspective, scale, and space. Her use of intense color and tight cropping further remove her subjects from their sources, and give us an opportunity to reorient ourselves and reconsider how the images operate. These paintings situate the viewer in awkward positions, slipping between flat geometries and illusionistic deep spaces that pull us in and disorient. Forms are deceptively crisp and precise, but upon inspection, we find them to be imperfect and painterly. Likewise, architectural symmetries and proportions are off, straight lines are wobbly, and perspective is wonky.

Corydon Cowansage (b. 1985, Philadelphia) received an MFA in painting from RISD and a BA in art from Vassar College. She has participated in residencies at the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Yale Norfolk School of Art. Cowansage recently had a solo show at 17 Essex (New York, NY), and a two-person show at Deli Projects (Basel, Switzerland). Her paintings have been included in group shows at the Bronx Museum (Bronx, NY), Juxtapoz Projects at Mana Contemporary (Jersey City, NJ), Skylab (Columbus, OH), Barney Savage (New York, NY), and Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), among others. In June 2019 Cowansage will have a solo show at KOKI ARTS (Tokyo, Japan). She lives and works in New York.