I exhibited six paintings in a three-person show at DIMIN in Tribeca, which ran from June 7 to July 12, 2024. Many of these works were conceived during a two-week residency at The Macedonia Institute in Chatham, New York, last fall. They reflect the vivid colors of the environment—the transition of leaves from green to yellow, orange, and red; the pink skies lit by the setting sun; and the frothy green-blue hues of the Hudson River.
After returning home, I eased back into my routine, leaving one of the larger paintings unfinished. The smaller Femme with Knife (study) served as an exploration of color and gesture, helping me resolve some formal challenges in its larger counterpart. While the finished piece loosely references the study, I improvised many elements and wove in characteristics inspired by earlier works, in an effort to synthesize past and present influences.
Here’s some text provided by the gallery:
Working across drawing, painting, and ceramic media, Whit Harris concentrates on representations of the dissolute experience through disjointed depictions of the human body. Figures stretch, recline, wriggle, twerk and otherwise contort themselves in exaggerated expressions that oscillate between naturalistic and cartoonish forms, and recall the DuBoisian premise of “double consciousness” underlying contemporary Black identity. These figures become metaphors for the artist’s psychological adaptation to unpredictable and hostile environments born out of sexist and racist social structures, reflecting the tenacity and ingenuity of Black femme imagination as political resistance. The paintings in Unfeigned Mysteries come out of a contemplative space she experienced during a recent residency in upstate New York. In seeking the sublime in everyday encounters, Harris depicts different cloud formations as a metaphor for the possibility and limit of human imagination when confronted with things outside of one’s control – much like the weather. Portraying a female nude climbing a hill in the rain, Femme with Piss Rain recalls the rites and rituals of the ancient Mysteries, offering sexual and symbolic gestures to the gods in search of enlightenment. As Harris explains; “I’m interested in the ambiguity of perception, and I enjoy playing with innuendo and double meaning as metaphors for larger truths about human identities.”
