Fresno Famous

Juliana Harris opens a solo exhibit of new paintings at Fig Tree Gallery, 644 Van Ness Ave, Fresno, on Art Hop Thursday, November 6tth, from 5 – 8 p.m. The exhibit runs through Sunday, November 30th. Gallery hours: Friday – Sunday, 12 to 4 p.m. Fig Tree Gallery is located in downtown Fresno near the intersection of Van Ness and Mono.

This new body of work titled DUSK On Lucy’s Pond consists of 20 paintings portraying a particular spot along Finegold Creek in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Initially inspired by gazing straight down into the water, Harris began the series by focusing on small areas of bouncing light and pattern. As her work developed, she began to paint interpretations of refracted light beneath the water, as well as reflections upon its surface. Adding to the challenge of expressing various lighting effects simultaneously was the time of day chosen – dusk, a time when flat planes and shadow-less pools emerge, muted tones envelope the atmosphere, contrasts dissolve, and colors merge into a secondary palette of oranges, purples, mauves, greens.

Further abstracting the idea of gazing into water, the paintings are rendered without reference points. There are no horizons or recognizable objects to anchor the viewer. These paintings suggest undulating depths and shallows intensified only by the time of day. Viewpoints shift as one looks down, into, across, up and through intersecting planes of water. With a relaxed eye many of these paintings reveal several perspectives simultaneously.

Harris says, “The viewer may find himself swimming upward to the surface, reaching into the murky depths of tangled pondweeds, roots and algae, floating horizontal to the pond floor, passing through murky light, or skimming the surface as concentric rings move outward. When I paid attention to what was really happening in the water, I found a myriad of complex plaids and cubist designs. I saw concentric rings cross over one another, in waves, and still
their circular form. This surprised and fascinated me.”

Technique-wise, Harris achieves a luminous depth by painting with glazes – thin transparent layers of medium mixed with pigment. It is not unusual for a Harris painting to consist of 50 to 100 layers of glaze. Stylistically suggestive of watercolors, glazes alter whatever lies beneath. Thickly glazed areas may be scrubbed, brushed, scraped and gouged to reveal earlier layers of paint. Glazing was a favorite technique employed by old-master painters, particularly the Dutch, to suggest an atmospheric depth and luminosity that seems to reside within the painting.

Harris explains, “I don’t aim for saturated colors, and I deliberately leave sections of canvas weave peeking through, similar to watercolorists, who often reveal the whites or tones of the original paper.”

“I use water-miscible oils that have undergone a chemical process that renders them water-soluble only for the duration of the painting process. The technology has been refined over the past 20 years or so. As the oil paint dries, the water-soluble molecule evaporates completely out of the equation, leaving behind only pure oil paint that is no longer water-miscible. Health-wise, these oils are safer to work with and environmentally friendly.”

Location: Fig Tree Gallery, 644 Van Ness Ave., Fresno
Starts: 2008 Nov 6 - 5:00pm
Ends: 2008 Nov 6 - 8:00pm
Website: http://julianaharris.com