RIDGEFIELD, CT.- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum announced the selection of Marti Cormand as the recipient of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's 2007 Emerging Artist Award. Cormand debuts an exhibition of entirely new work at the Museum. The exhibition will run through February 24, 2008.

The Aldrich Emerging Artist Award is administered by the curatorial staff of The Aldrich, including director Harry Philbrick and exhibitions director Richard Klein. Beneficiaries of the award, which has been presented by the Museum since 1997, receive a cash prize of $5,000 and the opportunity to exhibit at The Aldrich. Applications are not accepted for this award.

Cormand's paintings and drawings focus on tightly-rendered landscapes that explore the nature of representation in the digital age. Cormand's work, while all traditionally painted, utilize the computer and the Internet as new tools for reinvigorating painting, building off the history of photography's influence on representation.

The artist's anonymous landscape images, culled from Internet sources, are infused with both subtle manipulation and additions. The additions take the form of colorful abstract pattern, bleeding through from behind the picture plane, or curious geometric abstraction appearing on the painting's surface; both suggest that there is more to reality than meets the eye.

Born in Spain in 1970, Marti Cormand currently lives and works in Brooklyn and is represented by Josée Bienvenu gallery.

Previous Emerging Artist Award recipients are Roxy Paine, 1997; Paul Henry Ramirez, 1998; Bonnie Collura, 1999; John F. Simon, Jr., 2000; Claire Corey, 2001; Yuken Teruya, 2002; Elizabeth Demaray, 2003; David Opdyke, 2004; Todd Hebert, 2005; and Josh Azzarella, 2006.