Local artist Harris Allen gives us a behind-the-lens look at his latest series and upcoming shows.
Allen’s Living Images work often resembles a Renaissance painting, with nods to the Baroque style, which features darkening and silhouetted techniques embellished by the use of light and shade. Here, a scene of Edwina von Gal’s image in her garden.
For Hamptonite and contemporary artist Harris Allen (harrisallen.com), it’s all about movement. His artwork, which floats between still photography and video, gives his audience a rare gift—the ability to unwind and settle inside a moment, capturing the hidden shades and motions one might have missed in the present. “Real-life moments are multi-dimensional. My work is about capturing this dimensionality. Specifically in the unseen and fleeting—understanding them, revealing their intense beauty.” says Allen. “In making them physical, a moment in time becomes sculptural. Movement is proof of life. If there is movement, there is no mundane, only extraordinary.” The approach is futuristic in ways: His brush is high-speed cinematic equipment, and his canvas, industrial and commercial monitors; yet, he creates approachable in-depth moving paintings (or video sculptures) that transcends space and time and strikes a balance between the organic form and the complicated essence of the subject.
The family portrait, with parents Lee and Kristin, draws out the progression of slight movement, evoking a sense of serenity and peace
His latest series, Living Images, which was on display at Guild Hall this past spring, features video sculptures that explore the artistry of movement—a painter’s brush stroke, a sculptor harvesting grasses, a dancer’s silhouette. “Video is a physical medium. My work is based on nature and real-world events. Just as these events existed in physical space, they are best realized again physically,” he shares. “When viewing a dance performance, for example, there is an overwhelming amount of unseen beauty. Lost to perspective, lost to time. One may witness the broad strokes, but there exists more beauty in the imperceivable nuance.” Rooted in traditional painterly concepts of composition, lighting, and form, his pieces range from hours to several days, while some are ever-changing and indefinitely different. As for smaller moments, such as the family portrait? Allen explains, “These unseen movements themselves have compositions that become entirely new. A unique combination of emotive levers—action, movement, environmental timing, composition, lighting and framing—reveal the beauty of even seemingly mundane tasks.” While his work can affect his audience in an instant, the full experience is achieved in living with the work. Returning to the family portrait over time, for instance, will present new information and lead to a better understanding of the people and the moment.
When Allen walks me around his studio, a converted potato barn in Bridgehampton, he notes that while his pieces take on their own shapes and ideas, they are also all pulled together by an invisible string. “Linking my work are natural subjects, real events, understanding unseen beauty and giving permanence to fleeting moments,” he explains. “For example, a dance performance captured and re-realized physically, cements it in the present and makes it livable. A photograph is a sliver of a piece of time, but with video, you’re capturing the swath of space and time—capturing a moment in its dimensionality and life within the movement.”
sculptural work of the artist Mamoun.
“Movement is proof of life. If there is movement, there is no mundane, only extraordinary.” –HARRIS ALLEN
It’s the small moments that give the largest impressions—the texture of water, the topography of a dancer’s body, a family’s embracing arms. “Today, video is misunderstood. For such an immensely powerful scientific tool, it’s treated frivolously en masse. I want to expand our understanding of video and its role in our lives. Video is traditionally described as digital and a time-based medium. My work questions both statements. In doing so, it defines a more potent way of connecting people to our natural world and each other.”
Want to see the work for yourself? Allen’s fall plans include an upcoming display at the Folly Tree Arboretum in East Hampton on Sept. 14, followed by an opening at the Barn on Butter Lane on Sept. 22.
Photography by: courtesy of subject
