Alexander Harrison: Big World

Through the meticulous application of layers of acrylic on panel, Harrison conceptualizes the contrast between light and shadow, a tactic employed by the painters of the Italian Renaissance. Rarely depicting direct light, the artist favors the reflections occasioned by the surfaces of his images. Engaged with a history of surrealism and the supernatural, he turns repeatedly to symbols loaded with art historical and religious folklore, such as the apple, the pumpkin, and the moon, as well as those co-opted by racist caricature, such as the watermelon. Memento moris appear in the form of flowers, heavy-headed and drooping with melancholic candor in the moonlight. Appearing across his oeuvre, these motifs create an immersive universe, heightening the uncanny dissonance one feels when observing a whole rendered in fragments. The artist’s use of distinctive framing strategies, realized primarily through the use of trompe l’oeil, allow lifelike materials such as clapboard window frames and the bare stone walls of prison cells to determine the picture plane.

Mining his experiences growing up in Marietta, South Carolina, Harrison explores the psychic reverberations of America’s deeply entrenched racism as well as the role of the artist and the responsibilities inherent in painterly representation. These themes emerge in Harrison’s work through the recurrence of the Black male figure, reprised as a cowboy, an artist, and a man on the run. These characters recur as both a proxy for the artistic figure and for the manner in which Black masculinity has historically been stereotyped in popular culture, where representations have routinely lacked nuance. Harrison’s figures exist in riposte to these fallacies, offering instead portraits of self-determination and philosophical depth.