Marsha Cottrell

Marsha Cottrell pioneered a unique approach using an office computer and electrostatic laser printer, transforming these everyday tools into instruments for creating art.

Biography of Marsha Cottrell

Marsha Cottrell was born in 1964 in Philadelphia, PA. She studied at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, receiving a BFA in Painting in 1988. Later, she attended The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, obtaining her MFA in Painting in 1990. 

Throughout her career, she has been honored with prestigious fellowships and grants from several esteemed institutions, including Anonymous Was A Woman, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, recognizing their outstanding contributions to the arts.

Cottrell has exhibited her art widely. Her solo exhibitions have been held at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in Mill Valley and San Francisco, Van Doren Waxter in New York, Petra Rinck Galerie in Düsseldorf, Eleven Rivington in New York, g-module in Paris, and other esteemed venues.

Cottrell's works have also been featured in numerous group shows, including "Day Jobs" at Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto (2024), "More Light!" at Chart in New York (2022), "Gulliver’s Sketchbook" at KAI10 | Arthena Foundation in Düsseldorf (2022), "The Way We Are 3.0" at Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen (2021), "Together In the Round: Tammy Rae Carland, Marsha Cottrell, Zoe Leonard & Davina Semo" (Presented by Anthony Meier Fine Arts & Jessica Silverman Gallery) at 1969 California St in San Francisco (2020), and many more.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Marsha Cottrell's Art Style

Trained originally as a painter, Cottrell's artistic path took a turn in the late 1990s. While working in a magazine production department, she started experimenting with an ordinary office printer, using punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and brackets to construct her compositions. By repeatedly running paper through the printer and manipulating the images through cropping, resizing, and distortion, she transformed these elements into distinctive works on paper.

After completing a work on paper, Cottrell deletes the corresponding digital file, highlighting the importance of the physical object and contrasting with cyberart and related movements. She frequently employs high-quality mulberry paper, allowing iron oxide toner to accumulate on its surface through multiple passes in the printer. Known for her grayscale compositions, the artist introduced her first colored works at a 2021 exhibition hosted by Van Doren Waxter.

In recent years, Cottrell has been exploring vector-based lines and shapes sourced from software tool palettes, which she prints in layers of carbon-based toner onto handmade paper. This process yields unique images that blur the boundaries between drawing, printmaking, painting, and photography. In her monochromatic artworks, a palpable vibrational energy emerges, evoking a direct interaction with the computer screen and the ethereal spaces it encompasses.