In the Desert Painting

A painting must radiate a physical presence - otherwise, it is not a painting. The images in the paintings are partially obscured by bands of color, producing a louvered visual field - similar to the louvered mist effects in Wang Hui’s scroll from 1698: The Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Tour, Scroll VII. Likewise, these bands of color resemble the national flag of Greece. The paintings reference video games, carnival, television, headaches, nature, music, charms, signs, symbols in eye-popping color - creating a surreality of familiar, commonplace images. Many recent works are diptychs. One set of four paintings seemingly depict four time zones in the continental United States. A fifth diptych - also of clocks - is painted in fluorescent colors and is literally too bright to look at. Much like planet earth, it is too hot. A second set of five works painted with oil, enamel and fluorescent enamel depict the Cyclone rollercoaster on Coney Island in New York city. These ‘cyclones’ are named after five major hurricanes: Katrina, Harvey, Irma, Sandy, and Maria. Prior to 1998, the work was brightly colored and highly impasted, often using a cinematic arrangement by placing multiple canvases in sequential order - like a zoetrope. After 1998, I shifted the paintings’ material substance from thick to thin. The ‘thin’ works explored preternatural elements in our daily lives and focused on incidents of spiritual and intellectual compression. Originally from Sioux Falls, South Dakota Harris has lived and worked in Santa Fe since 1981. His paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States and are represented in a number of private collections including the Sahara Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas and the Graham Collection, Albuquerque. An environmental and political activist, he has been painting since kindergarten. He was employed as an exhibit specialist in a number of Santa Fe galleries and served for seventeen years as Chair of the Department of Fine Art at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos. Harris has received several awards: a Pollock Krasner Grant, the Bobbye Straight Faculty Initiative Award, a United States Artists USA Project Grant, and an F.O. Butler Award for Excellence in Education. His work has been featured in numerous publications and is included in Contemporary Art In New Mexico by Jan Adlmann and Barbara McIntyre.