Wonder – Paintings by Anne Harkness
On view August 27 through September 27, 2019
Reception for the artist held on Saturday September 14, from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
Wonder features works covering many of Anne Harkness’s evolving series of paintings – Hometown America, Diptychs, Figure, Man vs. Nature, Small Works, and Nature.
Harkness’s oil paintings flow effortlessly from images fractured into graphic shards of rich color to works with quiet strokes that evoke a calmer atmosphere. Recent paintings like Farm Story and Up to The Mountains (both from her Diptychs series) have areas painted in shades of gray, abruptly changing to full color, like an old photograph or memory suddenly becoming clearer. The Hometown series features corners and crossroads of real places, sights that are familiar to all of us no matter the location. Paintings in her Man Vs. Nature series depict power poles thrusting skyward, shattering sky and clouds into a kaleidoscope of color, somehow softening their intrusion. Harkness had once believed the man made structures to be unsightly, unfortunate, unsavory and a shame to have ruined such a beautiful natural surrounding with such a sight. But now she is thrilled at the graphic structures “loving their relationship or should I say ‘ the dance between them and the nature that surrounds them”.
Working from her love of subject matter with a strong design element, Harkness focuses on the importance of line and shape in her work as a means of giving her compositions a strong foundation to reveal the many layers within each piece. Anne credits her emphasis on these particular components to her love of drawing and a desire to retain the looser marks that give a piece a more rustic, unfinished quality.
A native of NC, Anne Harkness is an alumnus of the Atlanta College of Art and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from The Maryland Institute, College of Art. Her work as an art director in NYC for 15 years has embodied her work with a graphic element that astute viewers can detect in her paintings. As a contemporary artist, Anne seeks to capture a distinct point of view, often finding unexpected beauty in locations or views others would easily dismiss as ordinary, or too unattractive to be considered as the subject matter for artistic compositions.
Harkness has been featured in American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur and International Artist Magazines. She is represented by Ava Gallery, Carteret Contemporary Art, Crossnore Arts Gallery, Providence Gallery, and Vision Gallery.
