All visible matter is forged from ancient suns. All form, any form I create, is a material continuation of suns.
I see all form as a material phase of suns. As sculptor, matter is an inseparable medium – any portion in your hand, as well as your hand itself, is a duration and reach of its universal ‘clay’.
— Excerpt from Christine Corday: Works Radius Books Publication 2023
PRACTICE
Work Studios
Monumental installation and conceptual artist Christine Corday engages a materials practice with the evolving human scale of perception and fundamental forces. She works with temperature, pressure, material states, and atomic elements as well as creating new tools and materials by Art-led collaborations with international scientists, architects, engineers in natural and technological processes.
Corday moved her painting studio in 1999 to be informed by other cultural histories and definitions of Art and artist. Each location, she utilized anonymity to shed, learn and challenge definitions, aesthetics, and cultural contribution of Art and artist.
From her first studios in San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon, she moved her studio to Tokyo, Japan (1999-2000); then to Seville, Spain (2000 -2004), and then to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York (2005-2008). It was in New York, Corday’s practice replaced paint with elemental plasmas–from room-temperature paint to elements heated to temperatures like the surface of the Sun. After debut exhibition of her first Protoist work UNE, she moved to Hudson Valley, New York (2009-Present) to be closer to the foundries and fabrication studio of Christopher Powers, the partnered fabricator for UNE. Corday later in 2010 married Christopher and continue to collaborate on all Protoist, Abstract Construct and other work series including Foundation Civilization.
Sculptor Tools
In Corday’s practice, temperature and pressure are the cosmological-scale hammer and chisel of all material form on Earth and universe. “The universe has sculptor’s tools and as an artist, I use them… (Domus, Venice Architecture Biennale).” Corday collects and collaborates with space, geologic, fusion, planet, material sciences and technologies exploring the range and further application of these tools.
Elements tooled with Temperature
Spacewalkers: -30° - 135° F
Pigmented Paint: 70° F
Sculpture: 98° - 10,000° F
Sculptor Tools: 2000° - 40,000° F
Material Support of Other Forms: -452.2° - 270,000,032° F
Elements tooled with Pressure
Spacewalkers: 14.1 - 14.7 psi
Pigmented Paint: 14.7 psi
Sculpture: 14.7 - 6,500,000 psi
Material Support of Other Forms: 0.000 001psi
Atomic Clay
All atomic elements from the periodic table are used as pigments in Corday’s studio practice. Elements currently used on her working palette: Hydrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Iron, Silicon, Sodium, Neon, Carbon, Manganese, Phosphorus, Zinc, Copper, Nickel. Chromium. Cobalt, Columblum, Molybdenum, Titanium, Tungsten, Vanadium, Lead, Aluminum, Lithium, Nitrogen, and Tin.
Corday considers this shared atomic clay as a medium to shape disciplines versus objects. Current practice disciplines of interest and collaboration: Art. Chemistry. Cosmology. Physics. Architecture. Engineering. Fabrication. Biology. Astrophysics. Botany. Anthropology. Neurology. Spectroscopy. Archeology. Economics. Photometry. Psychology. Geography. Mathematics. Molecular Physics. Systems Science. Geology. Organic Chemistry. Areology. Quantum Mechanics. Data Science. Asteroseismology. Information Technology. Mechanics. Electromagnetics. Thermodynamics. Kinetics. Helioseismology. Inorganic Chemistry. Nuclear Physics. Quantum Chemistry. Electrochemistry. Analytical Chemistry. Solar Physics. Heliophysics. Earth Sciences. Anatomy. Biochemistry. Neurobiology. Astrometry. Planetology. Exoplanetology. Astrogeology. Inorganic Chemistry. Marine Biology. Music Theory. Ecology. Palaeontology. Optics. Genetics. Exogeology. Planetary Geology. Astrobiology. Microbiology. Astrochemistry. Cell Biology. Ethology. Thermodynamics. Physical Chemistry,. Meteorology. Atmospheric Sciences Glaciology. Biophysics. Climatology. Astroecology. Acoustics. Volcanology. Structural Geology. Atomic Physics.
We are both inseparable sensory witness and participant of an elemental architecture and its multibillion year changing form.
— Excerpt from Christine Corday: 2002-2022 Radius Books Publication 2023