Artist Profile
Courtney Puckett
Born in Winter Park, FL; based in Holmes, NY
Courtney Puckett makes biomorphic sculptures with domestic cast-offs and textile scraps. Through this act of recycling, the artist registers and also reimagines the relationship between humankind and our earthly environs.
Puckett scavenges for used furniture, household goods, and fabrics, which she dismantles and reassembles in new forms. She then methodically wraps each segment of these items with ropes, cords, strings, wires, and threads. This meditative process recalls traditional textile-making methods. Her practice engages with the ongoing art-historical discourse about the biased dichotomy between fine art and craft.
Drawing attention to skin’s physical intimacy with cloth, Puckett’s output reminds viewers how humans are swaddled, dressed, and surrounded with fabrics from birth. Ranging from life-size to tabletop-scale, each sculpture stands as a skeletal body encased in a fibrous membrane. These works appear like otherworldly cyborgs who warn of the earth’s gradual destruction. Puckett’s constructed characters—with names like The Changer, The Gardener, and The Orbiter—embody environmental consciousness, representing a brighter and cleaner planet.
CV
Courtney Puckett earned an MFA in Sculpture from Hunter College following a BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. The artist has participated in prestigious artist residency programs such as the Haystack Open Studio Residency, Deer Isle, ME (2022); Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY (2022); and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, New York, NY (2017). Puckett has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Furnace Art Paper, Falls Village, CT (2022); Hesse Flatow, New York, NY (2021); and the Suffolk County Community College, Selden, NY (2018). Her work has been featured in exhibitions at institutions including the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY (2023; 2022); Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, VA (2022); and the Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ (2022), among others.
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2022 Haystack Open Studio Residency, Deer Isle, ME
2022 Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Ithaca, NY
2022 Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY (forthcoming)
2021 River Valley Arts Collective, Artist-in-Residence in Community Research, Hudson Valley, NY
2018 Underwater NY/Works on Water Incubator Residency, Governor’s Island, NY
2017 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, New York, NY
2017 Vermont Studio Center, Artist-in-Residence, Full Fellowship Award, Johnson, VT
SOLO AND 2 PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2022 Courtney Puckett: Drawings and Sculptures, Furnace Art on Paper, Falls Village, CT (solo)
2021 NADA x Foreland, JAG Projects, Newburgh, NY
2021 The Helpers, Hesse Flatow, New York, NY (solo)
2020 Six Animated Textiles, collaboration with animator Nicole Antebi and musician Colin O’Con, New York Textile Month (online)
2018 Courtney Puckett: Sapphire Eye, Flecker Gallery, Suffolk County Community College, Selden, NY (solo)
2018 Sound and Vision: Courtney Puckett and Jessica Slaven, curated by Rachel Frank, Field Projects, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Assembly: Time and Attention, a National Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Arlington, VA
2022 Spring in Wartime, Bull Farm, Rock Tavern, NY
2022 The Material, The Thing, Hudson Valley Artists 2022, curated by Nicole Hayes, Dorsky Museum at Suny New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
2022 Tectonic Threads, curated by Ragna Froda, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
2022 Baggage, Icehouse and Russell Janis, Brooklyn, NY and Sharon, CT
2021 Terrain Biennial Newburgh, Public Art piece at Newburgh Free Library, Newburgh, NY
2021 Fantasy, Mohonk Arts Invitational/Upstate Art Weekend, High Falls, NY
2021 As the World Turns, Geary Contemporary, Millerton, NY
2021 Sunrise Sunset, Albany Airport Art and Culture, Albany, NY
2021 Form or Function, Artport Kingston, Kingston, NY
2020 Drawing Challenge XI, Jason McCoy Gallery, NY (online)
2020 Infinite Uncertainty, Opalka Gallery, The Russel Sage Colleges, Albany, NY
2020 Assembled, Arts Brookfield 1 MetroTech, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Unraveling, Hesse Flatow, New York, NY (Online)
2020 SpringSprung, Marquee Projects, Bellport, NY
2019 Earthly Delights, curated by Susan Jennings, Julie Torres, Ellen Letcher, Reinstitute, Millerton, NY
2018 World Holes, curated by Jesse Greenberg, White Columns, New York, NY (online)
2017 Form of Touch, SVA MA Curatorial Practice, curated by Becky Nahom, Brooklyn, NY
2017 Text/ure, curated by Kristen Frederickson, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York, NY
2017 Nasty Woman, Knockdown Center, curated by Jessamyn Fiore, Brooklyn, NY
2016 Counterpointe: New Work by Women Choreographers and their Collaboration with Sculptors, with Brenda Neville Dance Studio, presented by Norte Maar and The Brooklyn Ballet, The Actor’s Fund Art Center, Brooklyn, NY
2016 Weave Wars, Indianapolis Art Center, curated by Kyle Herrington, Indianapolis, IN
CURATORIAL
2019- present Curator/Co-Director, White Rock Center for Sculptural Arts, Holmes, NY
2016 Curator, TSA New York, Drawing for Sculpture, Brooklyn, NY
PUBLICATIONS
2021 Artists Quarantine with their Collections by Stephen Maine with contribution by Courtney Puckett, Hyperallergic, NY, Link
2020 Drawings 2019-2020, self-published artist book, essay by Michelle Segre
2018 Courtney Puckett: Sapphire Eye, Flecker Gallery, Suffolk County Community College, Selden, NY, essay by Lilly Wei (exhibition catalog)
2018 What to Make of It, Interview by Jen Schwarting, Field Magazine
2018 Drawings 2014-1018, self-published artist book, essay by Glenn Adamson
2018 Stone Canoe, Journal of Arts, Literature, and Social Commentary, Vol 12., Visual Arts Editor Rebecca Murtaugh
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jenkins, Mark, The Washington Post, Link
Art Spiel, Link
Baumgardner, Julie, Artnet.com, Link
Leuzzi, Linda, The Long Island Advanced, Link
Gorky’s Granddaughter, Link
Koral, April, The Tribeca Tribune, Link
Bomboy, Erin, The Dance Enthusiast, Link
Garland, Heather Elizabeth, Painting is Dead, Link
Paddy Johnson, ArtFCity, Link
EDUCATION
MFA Sculpture, CUNY Hunter College, New York, NY
BFA Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
Artist Statement
In work that integrates the theories and methodologies of both fine art and craft, I transform domestic cast-offs, such as old furniture, household goods, and textiles. I build armatures with found objects and disguise them with old bed sheets and clothing, like skin on a skeleton. Committed to Environmentalism, I source rather than buy my materials, saving everyday detritus from the landfills and rehabilitating them into sculptural forms. In an ongoing series of large-scale sculptures, I invent characters or archetypes and assign titles that suggest occupational or social roles; homespun avatars for a hyper-mediated social world. While the human-sized characters represent outwardly facing personas, a new series of small sculptures look inward and embrace the interior self and unconscious forces at play. The four elements of air, earth, fire, and water, plus the four directional coordinates of north, south, east, and west are the framework for research which informs new aesthetic decisions.