Julienne Harris

Harris exhibited with the Hughes gallery in Sydney until their closure in 2015. Harris is currently represented by Art Atrium in Sydney, NSW and Despard Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania

As an abstract artist Julienne Harris is interested in the inventive freedom of painting. In addition and to facilitate this she is concerned with the process of making and the exploration of materials. Her painting process is very physical and like a continually evolving performance. The works are taken in and out of the studio according to the weather. The humidity and temperature actively influence the way in which the paint forms and mingles on the canvas and collaboration takes place outside of her control. She paints on her canvas horizontally and vertically. She uses various methods of applying and removing the paint so the work is made and unmade. The painting forms from the surface where a history of the activity and interactions remain and as the work takes on its own identity an internal logic is found.

Harris’ work is about connections and the repetitive gestures become a meditative action. Chance plays an integral role in this process and is well described with this quote relating to John Cage’s approach to work where: “Chance is not viewed as the enemy of rational structures, but accepted as evidence of a wider orderliness of nature beyond human control or understanding.”

Dr Jacqueline Millner in a recent essay on Julie Harris’ work wrote “While Harris’ work is concerned with its own materiality and process of making, focused on structure and on discovering and moulding pictorial form, it comes from a place of deep commitment over many years. Her painting retains a certain ethics, a certain politics that is grounded in the material relations between paint and body — both of the artist and the viewer”.