erica harris likes to make art.
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Artist Statement
I live in Brooklyn, New York. The history, community, debris, languages, and industry of my metropolis are a huge source of materials and inspiration. Working in other countries has also had a profound influence on my work. For the past four summers, I've been teaching art to children in rural El Salvador. I learn as much, if not more, from looking at children's art and talking with them about their process and ideas as I do from the museums and galleries of New York. Using art as a tool to outline and interpret their relationships to family, food, school, work, society and death provides such a simple visual vocabulary, so eloquent and universal. In my own work, I'm often examining relationships to language. I like using text; I use the printed word as a pattern, and I often refer to changes in syntax in translation. A year long trip to Southeast Asia has also contributed to my use of text, as well as broadened themes of language, water, war, memory, and childhood. While traveling, I concentrated on collecting collage material: old children's encyclopedias and alphabet books, found photographs, sewing patterns, maps, deeds, gravestone rubbings, diagrams and instructional manuals, mid-century magazine advertisements, medicine labels, food packaging, candy wrappers and other ephemera. I incorporated what I found and saw in the streets, neighborhoods and marketplaces into the narratives of my pieces: people carrying towers of goods on their heads, toys constructed from tin cans and old bottles, houses and bird-feeders made of corroding metal bomb carcasses. In these countries that have been so damaged by years of war and poverty, I became fascinated by how everyday experiences and ordinary objects related to destruction, chaos, immigration, survival and loss. Something very mundane and ordinary could be a symbol of safety, shelter, or peace, while simultaneously being a relic of war. It is in this context that I am drawn to the use of simple imagery: an airplane, a house, water, shoes, birds. Combining discarded materials to make these narratives, such as a schoolgirl with a dress quilted from teabags, or a portrait of a woman with a crushed eggshell shawl, is like creating a shrine, or providing a sanctuary for people, places and objects that need mending.
artists & organizations
residencies

Artist Info

Erica Harris
w w w. e r i c a h a r r i s. o r g
315 East 5th Street Brooklyn, NY 11218
718. 687. 6356 | ericaeharris@hotmail.com

EDUCATION

1993 University of Wisconsin at Madison
Bachelor of Fine Arts, painting and drawing

RESIDENCIES

2010 Kriti Gallery… Varanasi, India
Cassilhaus… Chapel Hill, NC

2009 Yaddo… Saratoga Springs, NY

2008 Artpoint Gumno… Sloeshtica, Macedonia

2007 Instituto Sacatar… Itaparica, Bahia Brazil
San Francisco State sponsored Colima Community Art Project
Colima, El Salvador

2006 Blue Mountain Center… Blue Mountain Lake, NY
San Francisco State sponsored Colima Community Art Project
Colima, El Salvador

2005 Women’s Studio Workshop… Rosendale, NY
Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education… Townshend, VT
San Francisco State sponsored Colima Community Art Project
Colima, El Salvador

2004 Blue Mountain Center… Blue Mountain Lake, NY
San Francisco State sponsored Colima Community Art Project
Colima, El Salvador

2003 Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education… Townshend, VT

2002 Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education… Townshend, VT

SOLO EXHIBITS

2009 E.J Belloq Gallery, Louisiana Tech University… Monroe, LA

2008 Object Image Gallery, What in the World… Brooklyn, NY

2007 Object Image Gallery, Flight Patterns … Brooklyn, NY

2005 Binnewater Arts Center, Smalls… Rosendale, NY
Object Image Gallery, Mayday… Brooklyn, NY

2004 Object Image Gallery, Burma to Brooklyn… Brooklyn, NY

2002 Williamsburg Art and Historical Center … Brooklyn, NY

1996 Gowanus Art Center… Brooklyn, NY

1994 Madison Public Library… Madison, WI

1993 Red Oak Gallery… Madison, WI

GROUP EXHIBITS

2009 Lyons Weir Gallery, Art Bazaar… NY, NY

2008 St. Ann’s Warehouse, Great Small Works’ Toy Theater Festival… Brooklyn, NY

2007 Fenn Gallery of Contemporary Art… Woodbury, CT
Catherine Person Gallery … Seattle, WA

2006 Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Penumbra … Charleston, SC
Zimmer Children’s Museum, The Art of Time… Los Angeles, CA

2005 Brooklyn Working Artists Coalition, Pier Exhibit … Brooklyn, NY
St. Ann’s Warehouse, Great Small Works’ Toy Theater Festival … Brooklyn, NY

2004 Michael Petronko Gallery, -Scope London… London, England
Michael Petronko Gallery, -Scope L.A. … Los Angeles, CA
Zimmer Children’s Museum, show&tel … Los Angeles, CA
White Columns Gallery, Groundswell Community Mural Project…
NY, NY
Brooklyn Working Artists Coalition, Pier 12 Exhibit… Brooklyn, NY

2003 Object Image Gallery, Small Works Show … Brooklyn, NY
HERE Gallery, Great Small Works Toy Theater Museum … New York, NY

2002 Highland Art Center, Gazpacho… Highland, NY
Object Image Gallery, Lost Object, Found Image… Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn Working Artists Coalition, Pier 10 Exhibit… Brooklyn, NY
Center for the Book Arts, Rare Books of the Future … New York, NY
Municipal Building Gallery, Faces/ Phases… New York, NY
Brooklyn Museum, Groundswell Community Mural Project…
Brooklyn, NY

2001 Brooklyn Working Artists Coalition, Pier 9 Exhibit … Brooklyn, NY
Kentler International Drawing Space, Small Works Exhibit…
Brooklyn,NY
Object Image Gallery, Myths and Visions… Brooklyn, NY
Dam Stuhltrager Gallery, The 20’s… Brooklyn, NY

2000 HERE Gallery, Great Small Works Toy Theater Museum… New York, NY

1998 Amaranth Gallery… New York, NY

1997 Michael Petronko Gallery, Perceptions … New York, NY
The Puck Building , Media d’Arte Exhibit… New York, NY

1993 Porter Butts Gallery… Madison,WI

PUBLICATIONS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND AWARDS

2008 Reading Novalis in Montana, Melisa Kwansy, Milkweed Editions
cover illustration
Undoing, James Cihlar, Little Pear Press cover illustration

2007 Balaclava Casino Heist, Girl Nobody album cover illustration
Ian Love, Ian Love album cover illustration
I Carry a Hammer in my Pocket for Occasions Such as These,
Anthony Tognazzini, Boa Editions, Ltd. cover illustration

2006 Artful Paper Dolls: New Ways to Play with a Traditional Form
Published by Lark Books, featured artist
Skin by Kellie Wells, University of Nebraska Press, cover illustration

2005 FiberArts Magazine (Jan/ Feb)
Si Señor Magazine Brooklyn, NY

2002 Sí Señor Magazine, cover illustration Brooklyn, NY
Report to the Men’s Club by Carol Emshwiller, Small Beer Press,
cover illustration

1998 New York Magazine New York, NY