Christine Corday facts for kids
Christine Corday (born in 1970, Fort Meade, Maryland) is an American artist. She creates amazing sculptures and paintings. Her art often explores ideas from science, like astronomy and chemistry.
Christine Corday makes huge sculptures that people can touch. She wants you to feel her art and even leave your own marks on it. Her artworks are found all over the world, from Paris to Tokyo and New York City. Her first big show was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Early Life and Learning
Christine grew up in Maryland. She loved both art and science from a young age. She studied piano and later got a degree in Communication Arts. In 1991, she even had an internship at NASA Ames Research Center, studying space!
After college, she took classes in cultural anthropology at Washington University. For several years, she worked in design for advertising companies.
Around 1999, Christine started focusing on painting. She lived in Tokyo, Japan, and then Seville, Spain. In Spain, she worked on a special project. It was about sound and ocean energy, called Instrument for the Ocean to Play.
Her time in Spain changed her art. She started making her own black, tar-like paint. She used raw pigments and charcoal. These black paintings were like early ideas for her big sculptures.
Her Art Career
From 1992 to 1999, Christine worked as a designer for companies around the world.
The PROTOIST Series
Christine's first big steel sculpture is called UNE. It weighs three tons! This was the start of her PROTOIST SERIES. "PROTOIST" is a word she made up. It means the space between what we know and what we don't know.
UNE is made from raw weathering steel. It stands almost 9 feet tall. It has a thick arc that is over 16 feet long. A big hole runs through its center. This hole was made with a torch. UNE traveled the world. It was first shown in New York City in 2008.
The PROTOIST SERIES is made for people to touch. The artist wants people to interact with the sculptures. Over time, human touch will change their surfaces. "Each piece... is meant to be touched," she says. These sculptures are often placed in unexpected spots. This helps people discover them.
AHN is another sculpture in the PROTOIST SERIES. It weighs 300 pounds. It was placed in a corner of an art space in Brooklyn. AHN makes you think about how choices shape reality. It also makes you think about time and place. One art reviewer said AHN has a "grounding resonance."
In 2011, a smaller model of ÆPI was shown. The name ÆPI mixes Greek and Latin words. It means "upon." This sculpture has a special flat part. When you stand on it, your perception shifts slightly. It helps you notice small changes around you. It's like a quiet invitation to see the unseen.
Christine Corday's art is in private collections. You can find her works in Dubai, Dublin, Mexico City, Madrid, Brussels, and Paris.
Her newer works include a permanent series called HELDAN. She is also making a huge outdoor sculpture. It's called INSTRUMENT FOR THE OCEAN TO PLAY. This sculpture will use tidal power to make a low-frequency sound.
Her Paintings
In 2000, Christine moved her studio from Tokyo, Japan, to Seville, Spain. For four years, she mostly painted in black. She made her own paint. She mixed raw pigment and charcoal into a special base. This created a tar-like substance. She also made her own tools to apply the paint to canvas.
In 2005, she moved back to the United States. She set up a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Here, she created paintings. These paintings were like abstract plans for her sculptures. They helped her design HELDAN and the PROTOIST Series.
In 2009, a painting called THAHLES was bought by the Richard Meier collection. It is a very large painting, 72 by 216 inches. In 2013, another painting, PROME, was acquired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's San Francisco office.
National September 11 Memorial
Christine Corday played an important role in the National September 11 Memorial. This memorial honors the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The memorial has two large waterfall pools. These pools are where the Twin Towers once stood.
The architect, Michael Arad, chose Christine's special black finish. This finish was used for the bronze panels. These panels have the names of all 2,983 victims. They border the edges of the waterfall pools.
Christine worked closely on this project. She said, "Every name has run under the palm of my hand." She understood the importance of each name. She knew each name represented a life.
ITER and the Sans Titre Project
For the last 30 years, 35 countries have worked together. Their goal is to build a sun on Earth! This huge project is called ITER. It's in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France. Scientists there are studying how stars create energy. They want to create a star for humankind.
Christine Corday worked with the ITER Directors for five years. Her art became the 36th and final global contributor. She placed a single artwork inside the star's structure. This small, two-pound artwork is called Sans Titre (which means "Untitled").
Sans Titre is now part of ITER's M30 Bolts. These bolts hold together the giant parts of the Tokamak. The Tokamak is the heart of the star.
Christine said, "We are the generation witnessing a star being built on Earth." She explained that as a sculptor, her tools are like those that shape the universe. Her materials come from stars. It was important to her that a piece of art, made from star metals, would support this science project.
ITER aims to achieve "first plasma" in 2025. This is when the fusion process will begin. Sans Titre will be there to quietly observe it all. The Director-General of ITER, Bernard Bigot, said the bolt will be "a direct witness" to this amazing event.
Laban Coblentz, who handles communications for ITER, noted that Sans Titre shows how art can support science. It's not just decoration. It's a real and lasting part of this huge scientific achievement.
On July 28, 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron celebrated the start of the ITER Tokamak assembly. Leaders from many countries were there.
Awards and Prizes
Christine Corday has received many honors for her work.
- In 2019, she won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This was for her show Relative Points at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
- She also received the 2019 Brian Wall Foundation grant for sculptors. This grant is from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
- In 2016, she was nominated for a United States Artists fellow award.
- She won the Edison Ingenuity Prize in Montreal, Canada.
- She also won international design awards for a special glass bottle she designed for The Republic of Tea.
- In 2000, she won a short story prize from Francis Ford Coppola's magazine Zoetrope.
Personal Life
Between 1996 and 2005, Christine lived and worked in many places. These included Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, and Los Angeles, California; Tokyo, Japan; and Seville, Spain. During this time, she focused completely on fine arts. She especially worked on sculpture and architecture.
Today, Christine Corday lives in New York.
