No Moon LA

courtney coles intimate slow

courtney coles intimate, slow
July 28th – August 25th, 2022

Opening Thursday July 28th 6 – 9 PM

Born: Panorama City, CA
September 19, 1989 2:53 am

Sun: Virgo 26° 26’
Moon: Taurus 21° 18’
Venus: Scorpio 8° 00’

Soft is a true romantic. Leaning into soft, it holds your shape, remembers you, inviting you back again. Occasionally, it even keeps a piece of you— a hair, a thread, a stain.

Something soft is often held within courtney coles’ photographs, places for the sharper and harder edges of life to land. Sometimes soft, with traces of what impressed itself upon the scene, is all that is left in the image. This rouses a longing in the viewer for what has just departed from frame or occurred in the moments before the shutter closed.

When she was young, her father served in the military and left the shelter of their home to go overseas for prolonged periods of time. coles became accustomed to holding space for presences that were not embodied. She wrapped herself in music and pop culture and the artists became intimate and real. Their holographic images were altars at which feelings of longing could worship.

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley there was a sense that most containers were inadequate. Even the Valley seemed to spill over. Even the body could barely contain the soul.

Marty Windahl

courtney coles is a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and San Francisco Chronicle. She received her MFA from CalArts in 2019 and BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2014. coles is an Adjunct Professor at Cypress College and co-founder of To the Front.

courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow
courtney coles intimate slow