Christine Corday (born in 1970, Fort Meade, Maryland) is an American painter and sculptor. Her work draws from earlier studies in astronomy, cultural anthropology, chemistry, and sensory perception science. Corday's artistic approach consist of manipulation of matter into different states, producing massive sculptures that viewers are meant to experience through touch, leaving memories on the surface of her work. Her works are found in private international collections: Paris, Madrid, Dublin, Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Miguel de Allende, Dubai, Brussels, Washington DC, and New York City. With Corday's first solo exhibition: PROTOIST SERIES: SELECTED FORMS, presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Early life and education
A Maryland native, Corday's interest in the arts and science was marked by her classical training in piano during her formative years. In 1991, before receiving her B.A. in Communication Arts (1992), she wrote an original research paper which led to an Astrophysics internship at NASA Ames Research Center. Corday continued her academic studies later on in graduate courses in cultural anthropology at Washington University. From 1992–99, she worked in graphic and structural design for advertising companies, such as Wieden+Kennedy, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and SKUzzio Design. In 1999 and 2000, Corday began devoting her time to painting. She spent one year in Tokyo, Japan, then would later go to Seville, Spain for three years working on her sound and tidal energy project called Instrument for the Ocean to Play. Corday's work and experiences in Spain shifted her palette to black, hand-making her own tar-like paint through raw pigments, charcoal, and synthetic polymers, and fabricated tools to apply the paint to raw linen and canvas. Corday's black palette painting are considered to be early blueprints of her sculptural work.
Career
In 1992–99, Corday worked internationally for advertising and design agencies as a graphic and structural designer.
PROTOIST Series
Corday's first steel work entitled UNE is a three-ton form beginning the artist's PROTOIST SERIES. "PROTOIST" is a term coined by the artist to describe the intermediary state between the known and the unknown. UNE is hewn from 3 tons of raw weathering steel, standing nearly 9 feet tall with a 13-inch thick arc spanning more than 16 feet. A 2.5-foot torch-cut void runs through the center of the arc; its resulting passage replaces the artist's hand, or the stroke, in an otherwise mechanical process. UNE began its international tour with a debut exhibition in Chelsea under the High Line, (November 7 – December 12, 2008; Curator: Beverly Allan), the Form "inspired local construction workers to make a three-inch steel effigy, which they gave to the artist as a present; what it will evoke elsewhere is anyone's guess."
The PROTOIST SERIES is conceived and constructed to be consumed by the hand, not only to be touched but to be worn down over time by the tide of human interaction. "Each piece in the PROTOIST SERIES is meant to be touched, to be entered, and even to be walked upon." The Forms are intervened for a sole evening or limited duration in locations—an abandoned interior, an urban alley, a marble piazza—that are selected to motivate the unexpected encounter.
AHN, Corday's second work in the PROTOIST SERIES was installed in the corner of a 5,000 sq ft art space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn: Allan Nederpelt. The 300 pound carbon steel piece supports the juxtaposition of three visible dimensional planes, reminding its experiencer of the intersecting choices constructing reality and the impermanence/permanence of time and place. Art reviewer Enrico Gomez spoke to AHN's "grounding resonance" saying, "It optically strums like an electric bass and has considerable gravitational pull."
In 2011, the 60" x 120" (151 cm x 303 cm) maquette of PROTOIST Form ÆPI was previewed during the exhibition, All That Is Unseen, curated by Meg O'Rourke and Caris Reid in New York City. The title of the Form fuses the meaning and pronunciation of the Greek root "epi" (upon) from the English words epicenter and epoch with the lost sound of Latin diphthong Æ. The Form's torch-cut center plate is an abstraction of the figurative self as plateau or stair––standing on its plane shifts a single dimension of perception by 1 and 1/2 inches thus acutely honing the senses to their most subtle realms––a quiet big bang, a floating grounded void, an intimate invitation to the unseen.
Corday has work in private collections in Dubai, Dublin, Mexico City, Madrid, Brussels, and Paris.