BRENT HARRIS

by Jane Devery
Paperback, 15.5 x 22 cm, 32 pages
ISBN 978-0-7241035-2-2
Published by National Gallery of Victoria

Publication to coincide with the Brent Harris exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2012. Brent Harris is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. A prolific painter and printmaker, he is well known for haunting imagery that drifts between abstraction and figuration. Charged with a quiet emotional intensity, his paintings, prints and drawings are often motivated by an exploration of personal memories and the expression of psychological states. Sometimes humorous and often disturbing, they address a range of universal concerns relating to human experience: life, death, fear, doubt, spirituality and sexuality. Encompassing more than 70 works drawn predominantly from the NGV Collection, this exhibition looks at the development of Harris’s unique vision over a career of more than twenty years, exploring the ways that he has continually transformed his approach to image-making from his earliest prints and drawings to his most recent paintings.