Catherine Courtenaye
The Double Helix Anthology, 2014
Oil on Panel
60 x 60 Inches
Sixteen 12 x 12 Inch Pieces (Configuration Variable)

Many years ago, while reading through some antiquarian documents, Catherine Courtenaye was struck by how single pen strokes in 19th century manuscripts can conjure an era so keenly. Encompassing her interests in American cultural history and literature, formal issues of stroke and texture, the vernacular, and American folk art, this phenomenon of line propelled her work forward. Since then, her paintings have investigated the everyday handwriting of 19th century Americans by recontextualizing these artifacts in fields of color and language.

In sharp contrast to today’s “data streams” of keyboarded letters, there is an object-like quality to quoted text fragments. “Drawn” letters and numbers can be storytellers without being literal. And the signatures of ordinary people, their schoolbook exercises, and even their stray margin notes are revelatory. To Courtenaye they narrate the conflicted Victorian longing for convention, alongside a passion for flourished excess. The awkward marginalia and impulsive flourishes of past scribblers attest to the humanity of our ancestors, long gone. In her work, she wants to remember that, despite the radical social transformations that technology has brought, those ancestors are not so different from us.Over the past several years Courtenaye has examined collections in the Montana Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and regional historical societies in many other states. She collects 19th century American penmanship manuals, arithmetic workbooks and handwritten ephemera. Through various digital and printmaking processes, she incorporates facsimiles into paintings.