Alexander Harrison

Harrison engages with a history of surrealism and the supernatural. The artist returns repeatedly to symbols loaded with art historical and religious folklore, such as the apple and the moon, as well as those co-opted by racist caricature, such as the watermelon. Appearing across his oeuvre, these motifs create an immersive universe, heightening the uncanny dissonance one feels when observing a whole rendered in fragments. Memento moris appear in the form of flowers, heavy-headed and drooping with melancholic candor in the moonlight. Working directly from an inner consciousness, Harrison brings myriad metaphysical references into his compositions, loading the work with an ineffable talismanic quality especially present in the artist’s intimately-scaled work.

Through the painstaking 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 symbolist images, including the moon and a glowing cobweb, or in one instance, an emotionally-charged close-up of an eye looking out at the viewer.

Harrison studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. His first solo exhibition with Kasmin opened in January 2023. Additional solo exhibitions have been staged at Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA; Fisher Parrish Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and NADA Miami, FL. Harrison has been in group exhibitions at the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM; the Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Germany; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Hesse Flatow, New York, NY; Richard Heller, Los Angeles, CA; 0.0 LA, Los Angeles, CA; Hotel Art Pavilion, Brooklyn, NY; Fisher Parrish Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Smoke the Moon, Santa Fe, NM, in addition to Kasmin. His work is held in private and public collections including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami and the Hall Art Foundation, North Adams, MA.