The absurd gets me closer to an intensity of sensation ... The sensation of being in a body ... The sensation is only ever forming/transforming, never whole. This is why my images are nearly always cropped, part objects. They can never fully declare a meaning. Just like life ...
- Brent Harris, 2005
Born in New Zealand, Brent Harris has lived in Australia since 1981. A painter, printmaker and draughtsman, he has developed a distinctive personal visual language where his works dwell somewhere between abstraction and peculiar figuration, incorporating elements of the surreal, such as automatic drawing and uncanny distillation of the figure. Immaculate surfaces, pristine edges and cropped forms are dominant features of his works.
Harris works methodically, often using a sequence of paintings, prints or drawings to zero in on an idea, a form or to determine a composition.
The Art Gallery of NSW recently acquired a selection of evocative aquatints from his Swamp series of 1998-2000.