Petah Coyne

Early life and education

Coyne was born in Oklahoma City in 1953 to a military family that moved several times before settling in Dayton, OH when she was twelve. Coyne was home-schooled and as a teenager took courses at the University of Dayton. She attended Kent State University from 1972-1973 and then the Art Academy of Cincinnati, from which she graduated in 1977.

Career

She lives and works in New York and New Jersey. Her most recent solo exhibition at the Mass MoCA (May 29, 2010) features large-scale mixed-media sculptures along with silver gelatin print photographs. Coyne layers wax-soaked materials such as pearls, ribbons and silk flowers into large sculptural forms, often incorporating taxidermied birds and animals.

"The works in this largest retrospective of the artist’s work to date range from her earlier and more abstract sculptures using industrial materials to newer works made of delicate wax. All of Coyne’s works take inspiration from personal stories, film, literature and political events. Coyne takes these sources and applies a Baroque sense of decadent refinement, imbuing her work with a magical quality to evoke intensely personal associations. Together these diverse yet intimately connected periods of Coyne’s practice make evident an evolution, which highlights the artist’s own blend of symbolism alongside an innovative use of materials including black sand, car parts, wax, satin ribbons, trees, silk flowers, and taxidermy."

According to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art,

"Coyne belongs to a generation of sculptors—many of them women—who came of age in the late 1980s and forever changed the muscular practice of sculpture with their new interest in nature and a penchant for painstaking craftsmanship, domestic references and psychological metaphor."

"So that's what I'm trying to do with the white wax pieces I'm doing now - they're about those times that are almost perfect but not quite. You go searching to meet them again, and you're all excited, and it's never quite the same - but you always have the memory. So it's not just about people passing, it's more about friendships that have gone awry or people who have strayed. Just basically, humanity. That's what all these pieces are about.

- Petah Coyne March 24, 1994. In her studio, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Selected Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2010

Petah Coyne: Everything That Rises Must Converge. Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA

2004

Petah Coyne. Cincinnati Art Museum

1999

Fairy Tales. Butler Gallery, Kilkenny Castle, Ireland; catalogue

1998

Fairy Tales. Galerie Lelong, New York

1997

Black/White/Black. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., (travelling)

1996

Petah Coyne, Black and White, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and High Museum of Art, Atlanta; cataloguePhotographs, Laurence Miller Gallery, New York

1994

Sculpture, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

1992

Petah Coyne, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; catalogue

1989

Grand Lobby Installation, Brooklyn Museum of Art

1987

Untitled Installation, Sculpture Center, New YorkSpecial Projects, The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, P.S. 1, Long Island City, New York

Group Exhibitions

2003

Art Basel

2001

Artists Take on Detroit: Projects for the Tricentennial. Detroit, 2001

2000

Glen Dimplex Artist’s Award, Irish Museum of Modern Art, DublinWhitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; catalogue

1999

Millennium Messages, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibitions, organized by the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York; catalogueDomestic Pleasures, Galerie Lelong, New YorkDrawing in the Present Tense, Parsons School of Design, New York; catalogue

1998

Preview, Review, Galerie Lelong, New YorkHouse of Wax, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

1997

Selections from the Collections, The Museum of Modern Art, New YorkPermanent Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, San DiegoNeuberger Museum of Art 1997 Biennial Exhibition of Public Art, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York; catalogue

1996

A Selection of Gifts to the Collection from Lily AuchinclossLily Auchincloss, The Museum of Modern Art, New YorkPartners in Printmaking, Works from Solo Impressions, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

1995

Object Lessons: Feminine Dialogues with the Surreal, Massachusetts College of Art, Huntington Gallery, Boston

1994

In the Lineage of Eva Hesse, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, ConnecticutPrints from Solo Impressions, The College of Wooster Art Museum, Ohio; catalogue

1993

Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition of Drawings, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York"Monumental Propaganda, Institute of Contemporary Art, Moscow

1992

MiaHaus, Thread Waxing Space, New YorkNatural Forces/Human Observations, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri

1991

Award in the Visual Arts, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

1990

Art Contemporain, Visions – 90, Centre International d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; catalogueDetritus: Transformation and Re-Construction, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York

1989

The Emerging Figure, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; catalogue

1987

Elements, Whitney Museum of American Art, Equitable Center, New YorkSculpture, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New YorkStanding Ground: Sculpture by American Women, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; catalogueAlternative Supports: Contemporary Sculpture on the Wall, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; catalogue

1986

Bodies and Dreams, White Columns, New YorkSydney Blum/Petah Coyne/Beverly Fishman, P.S. 122, New YorkNature Observed, Danforth Museum of Art, BostonParadise & Purgatory: West Meets East, Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkPersonal Visions, East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art, East Hampton, New York Benefit Exhibition, East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art, East Hampton, New York

1985

Toy Show, BACA/The Brooklyn Arts Council

1984

Holiday Invitational, A.I.R. Gallery, New York