Rachel Harrison has said that it is better to experience, not analyze, her work. She has resisted categorizing her work for the sake of quick comprehension. Her art never entirely conforms to rigid classification or easy description. Each work can be a slightly different combination of elements that bridge the sculptural, painterly, and photographic. Styrofoam, papier-mâché, plywood, and cement are among her chosen materials and the basis for her unusual and often humorous constructions. Embedded into these objects are color photographs, setting off a dynamic play between object and image.
Most people expect to see photographs on walls, in books, on mantelpieces. But Harrison rejects these conventions, opting to house her pictures in objects that suggest rocks, amorphous blobs, and domestic architecture. When approaching her work, viewers are invited to look closely and think imaginatively: why this particular image for that particular form? In the process of working through such questions, attention is often directed towards small, seemingly random details: a blotch of color that exists in the photograph might be echoed in the object, endowing a two-dimensional images with a unique physical presence.
Rachel Harrison lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
The Game. 1998
Wood, polystyrene, cement, adhesive,
acrylic paint, newspaper, and
chronogenic color prints (60 x 27 x 21")
Courtesy GreeneNaftali Inc., New York
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