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In Ms. Harris’s new work, the large paintings are filled with layers of images, blue prints of constructions dissected and reformed. Like the mad sketches of a scientist breaking down a chemical or the architect deconstructing a complex structure, we see the unraveling and reconstructing of familiar forms.
Her new use of vibrant color seems only to exaggerate the intensity of her themes. The figures erect out of the darkness like thoughts surfacing in the mind. The tone of her work is serious while the colors would almost suggest a playfulness. Although the paintings are very large, the images are not general but painstakingly detailed with fine lines creating the figures. Her combined use of paint and wax allows her to express, with several mediums, the multi-dimensional nature of her subject matter.
A prevalent theme is the “Thread of Ariadne” – based on the mythological figure, Ariadne, who gave a ball of thread to Theseus so he could find his way out of the Minotaur’s maze. In constructing these mazes for us, but by also giving us the path to “escape,” Ms.
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Harris has enabled us to explore, uninhibitedly, the route of our own fears.
The maze translates from metaphorical to physical context as it delineates the curve of the spine, the labyrinth of veins that move through us in our own impossible inner framework. Although the figures are clearly structural in form, the movement, the motion, and emotion incites an energetic response in the viewer who identifies instinctively with the patterns and paths, the complexity and simplicity of those bodies.
Ms. Harris explores the human instinct to deconstruct the unknown; to examine, in parts, the mysteries and complexities of life, the connections and dissections. She attempts to break things down without destroying them, allowing the form to remain itself while being examined, to find among the mazes a safe and true path to lead us on. And as she unravels Ariadne’s thread for us to follow, holding on becomes the easy part.
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