Since 1995, Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Harrison has carved out a distinctive niche in contemporary art with works and installations that hybridize the sculptural, the painterly, and the photographic. Her work examines the condition of looking, wanting and having, with a finely tuned balance of sharp wit, wry sympathy and sensitive insight which is Harrison's own.
Rejecting conventions and resisting categorizing her work for the sake of quick comprehension, Harrison has said that it is better to experience, not analyze, her work. Viewers are invited to look closely and think imaginatively: why this specific image or that particular form? Each piece combines unusual materials, for example, framed photographs with Styrofoam, papier-mâché, plywood, or cement.
For her exhibition at Oakville Galleries, Harrison will create a new series of images that address the gallery's location in a public park setting. Gairloch Gardens will become the 'site of the photographic', the images of which will consider the myriad rites, with their own aesthetic specifications, which regularly occur just beyond the gallery's walls.
Rachel Harrison's work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. Her work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Harvard Art Museums, among others.
Oakville Galleries is producing an illustrated catalogue with essays by Ben Portis and Saul Anton.
Curated by Ben Portis
