Spencer J. Harrison
Unexpected Beginnings
24 Aug 2021 – 07 Sep 2021
Utilizing an image which is common to my paintings of an antiquated canoe in an imagined, emotional water or landscape, as a metaphor for those around me in the world, I provide a viewer with the variety of emotions I have been navigating. The canoe is a metaphor for the figure, having ribs and acting as a container for emotions. Like us they take up space and displace the environment around them, leaving reflections, memories, or spaces for contemplation. In some, it is the space around the vessel which is most telling. For others the inside of the vessel is articulated to draw attention to those more interior feelings we carry. And for others, it is the impressions left behind in the reflections which are most significant. The vessels are always empty inviting the viewer to enter the work and experience the beauty which surrounds them.
The water or landscapes are built up with layers and layers of transparencies of colour creating the space the vessels inhabit. Technically referred to as glazing, the viewer looks through these thin washes of colour which create the illusion of three-dimensional space; however, traces of the painting process exist as means of breaking these illusions, reminding the viewer that these are direct communications between us.
At first the paintings are quite clear: boats in invented landscapes. However, if the viewer spends a little more time with each painting they will start to see and explore the complex codes of painting they are examining. This is an invitation into the moments and emotions which have prompted the works to be made. Even in the darker or more somber works there is always light. Sometimes it is the viewer who’s light is the source in the work. I hope these paintings will remind viewers to search for the positive and beauty in the world which can pull us through.”
Spencer J Harrison
