ANGEL COTRAY
Inward
Angel Cotray’s paintbrush is a catalyst for mindful epiphanies. Her cropped abstractions distort reality into densely emotional works that favor introspection - whether in her spirit or her viewer’s. For Cotray, creating visual art is a sanctuary where she can explore honest self-acceptance and cultivate growth. As a neuro-divergent artist living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Angel is more motivated than most to wrangle her thoughts and channel them for positive use. Across the works, we can see her commandeering her internal dialogue and confronting the self-contained conflicts that arise. Her fluid, swirling brush strokes illustrate vignettes of aspirational transcendence, intertwining her motifs of foliage and natural elements. Angel’s self-awareness allows her to create vulnerable moments in her work that lend to her artistic intention.
“I long to instill hope…that there can be change and growth in people, if that is desired, once self-awareness is in place.”
There is a waft of dimly lit somberness in the deep hues Angel employs. However, the depth of each shadow is always contrasted by a soft brightness. As if to signify Angel's orientation toward hope regardless of circumstance. Like the foliage in her work, Cotray optimistically and resiliently guides her audience toward sunkissed growth.
Text by Marquez Woods
“I long to instill hope…that there can be change and growth in people, if that is desired, once self-awareness is in place.”
There is a waft of dimly lit somberness in the deep hues Angel employs. However, the depth of each shadow is always contrasted by a soft brightness. As if to signify Angel's orientation toward hope regardless of circumstance. Like the foliage in her work, Cotray optimistically and resiliently guides her audience toward sunkissed growth.
Text by Marquez Woods
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Artist Angel Cotray (b. 1995) is a native New Yorker from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, currently based in the Bronx, NY. She first learned the fundamentals of oil painting in a beginners class during her sophomore year of her undergraduate degree in 2017, while double majoring psychology. Cotray graduated on the deans list with a BA in studio arts from Hunter College in 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, she has focused on Figurative Abstraction as a means to search for inner guidance, mindfulness, and redemption, while navigating through the struggles of mental health.