Courtney Googe

I am an autobiographical artist and Assistant Professor of Art at Tarrant County College where I teach Printmaking, Design, and Art Appreciation. For several summers I taught printmaking and book arts workshops at Mudhouse Art Residency in Crete, Greece. I received my BFA from the University of Wyoming in 2012 and my MFA from the University of Dallas in 2018. I have shown my work all over Dallas/Fort Worth as well as Wyoming, Mississippi, Montana, Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, and Oregon; and internationally, in Bangladesh, Australia, the UK, and Greece. I have also been published in several issues of The Hand Magazine between 2016 - 2025. My preferred processes are reduction relief, cyanotype, photography and video. Often I’ll take the still images produced by these processes and animate them digitally. Reduction relief is my chosen printmaking technique. I love the physicality and mindfulness of carving the image and playing with layers of transparent color. I am also drawn to its inherent challenges. In addition to printmaking, I also frequently use photography (and cyanotype), poetry, and video in my work. I often jest that I’ll do anything except paint. Photography and video has become a visual journal, often as a way to record the immediate moment in response to emotional, social, or political stimuli. This allows me to play with persona, capturing emotion made visual, and documenting my story (as I believe the only person’s story I have the right to illustrate is my own.) From this, both cyanotype and animation become a great marriage of photography and printmaking. I treat the transparency of the cyanotype as a matrix to create multiples which can be manipulated, and animation becomes a new space in which to create interaction between images. With the narrative of my work, I hope to encourage my viewers to reflect upon their own life, or perhaps be inspired to do something new. I use the figure to experiment with new ways of presenting “emotion made visible” while slowly incorporating the use of props or symbols. Often taking from mythology and other archetypes, I develop different personas which I document for figure reference. I am giving myself permission to embrace the various sensations and to be vulnerable with the intensity of existing as a female. I currently live in Fort Worth, Texas with my foster cat, Winchester, and feline familiar, Goat (Cheese).

1. The Villain Inside...Needs a Break

What would the monster do, after a night of causing mayhem and chaos? They’d need a smoke break as they

decompressed from all that exhausting work. During the holidays my daughters and I were researching

different folktales from around the world. I was inspired by the tale of Krampus and we created masks with

various scrap papers. This video is a contemporary response to the older, pre-Christian story. Sometimes we all

need to embrace and play with the shadow within.

Scrap paper, herbal cigarettes, Hyundai Elantra

2. Walk Cycle in a Skirt

I recommend playing at 0.5 speed and on a loop. This animation was created from a reduction woodcut I

completed in Crete in 2022. Sometimes I will specifically plan and prepare my prints for animation.The original

print included the 4 main stages of the walk cycle and the figure is a composite of a Greek column and the skirt

of the Minoan Snake Goddess. Conceptually, I’m interested in how the goddess figure has become “pillars” of

many cultures.

Oil-based ink on paper, compiled using Adobe Photoshop

3. Self-Portrait as Argus

Inspired by Argus of Ancient Greek Mythology, I made this work at the same time I was in therapy working

through abuse and trauma from my past. The body remembers and keeps watch, even when the brain denies

or represses memories. This clip was part of a larger installation called Have a Safe Space, or How to be

Vulnerable and Unapologetic. The eyes are a reduction print, which I manipulated in Adobe Photoshop and

layered on top of my photograph.

Photograph, oil-based ink on paper

4. Against the Car

I recommend playing at 0.5 speed and on a loop. This is an animated cyanotype based on my road trip from

DFW to Marfa, TX. I have a drawing process that I use for creating my cyanotypes and I stopped for photos at

various points during my trip. I enjoy trips alone because it allows times like this, for play or reflection.

Cyanotype

5. Smoke Break Against the Car

I recommend playing at 0.5 speed and on a loop. This piece was the next stage of the cyanotype animation. I

used various materials to fume-tone the paper, creating a smoky-effect which works well with the subject.

Toned cyanotype