KNOXVILLE, TENN.- Eco Tone, on view at the Knoxville Museum of Art, is a show of Courtney Egan’s artwork from 2020 to present, including new pieces made in collaboration with another New Orleans artist, Natori Green. Courtney Egan’s projection-based sculptural installations deliver an experience that is both pleasing and disconcerting. The ethereal projections – converging on walls, floors and sculptural elements – are inspired by the growing frequency of human exposure to nature via computers or television. Egan creates stunning yet “subtly impossible, hybrid tableaus,” which envelop the viewer in a conversation between memory of the natural world and a new experience with a plant or flower. She explains the fundamental irony of the experience, stating, “We get closer and farther away from the natural world simultaneously when we experience it through a technological lens.”

Courtney Egan’s projection-based sculptural installations mix botanical themes with shards of technology. Strongly inspired by the profusion of flora in New Orleans where she has lived and worked since 1991, Courtney’s artworks ask broad questions about how human life and the plant world co-evolve.

She began presenting nature-themed projected artworks in 2010 with her solo show, “Field Recordings,” at Heriard-Cimino Gallery in New Orleans, and she currently shows her projection-based work at Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans. Recent solo shows include “Extinct in the Wild” at Arthur Roger Gallery, “Virtual Idylls” at the Ogden Museum of Art, and “Superflora” at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Gallery in Austin, TX. Her work has been featured in Sculpture magazine, Country Roads magazine, OxfordAmerican.com, PelicanBomb.com, and Artforum.com.

Courtney also shows artworks in light festivals such as Napa Lighted and Luna Fete and has shown short films in festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Black Maria Film Festival. She was an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute and at Louisiana Artworks in New Orleans. She is a founding member of the New Orleans-based visual arts collective Antenna. Courtney holds an M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has taught art and media in elementary, secondary, and college classrooms since 1991. www.courtneyegan.net

Natori Green (b. New Orleans, 1992) is a mixed-media visual artist whose works span paintings, video installation, photography, fashion, and textile design. Green’s artwork explores the concepts of race and gender with reflective surfaces, natural hairstyles, urban landscapes, and Louisiana native plants. When she is not painting, Green creates ready-to-wear, handmade garments and knitwear pieces, particularly mother-daughter ensembles. She has an affinity for natural dyeing techniques, machine knitting, and the practice of garment construction and tailoring.

Knoxville Museum of Art
Courtney Egan: Eco Tone with Natori Green
June 16th, 2023 - August 27th, 2023