Prints and Sculpture
Fox Jensen Gallery - 2011
Christchurch’s Sam Harrison has already appeared in a couple of group shows at Jensen but this is first solo exhibition here. As expected it features both sculpture and woodcuts, all skilfully made, dealing with the unclothed female figure. His earlier works were based on drawings of a variety of male and female models.
In my view the woodcuts are more successful than the pale grey plaster figures. This is because of the chance component caused by the grain of the planks on which he gouges his lines. It introduces a frenzied element that agitates the drawn image like electrical interference. The knot-holes, rippling striations, and clouds of specks undermine the clarity of Harrison’s superb drafting skills - in fact they provide a contrast that showcases them - introducing a processual/chronological aspect as if the artist were God or Nature toying with the elements.
Harrison’s Rodin-like sculpture has no 3D material equivalent to the above disruptive graphic contrast, though it does have surface qualities like smooth waxy shininess as a foil to rough and lumpy dry plaster toes and hair. It is more subtle, too subtle perhaps, and lacks any cosmological (micro/macrocosmic) or visual drama. In the woodcuts there are inner (physical) worlds not apparent in the sculpture.
So this Jensen show is an installation where the prints interact with the sculpture as you circumnavigate the space. All four images are of the same model and are contemplative of the human form in mood (as an indication of the mind), not say erotic or humorous. In fact her face or front are not shown. The expressive qualities of her gnarled and muscular back are accentuated, as are her extended elbow or folded arms.
The odd thing is that the way these two sculptures are photographed above (here) - from a lower height - the model looks as if she is doubled over in pain. However when you are walking around them, standing and looking down on her back, that part of her body is the point of the work and her positioning. That and only that. Not interpretations of distress.
Aspects of these sculptural poses are repeated in the prints, and as I’ve said, the marks of the prints are penetrable - they optically draw you in - while the compact sculpture limits the eye to the glossy white surface. Also the prints have a fascinating edge to the contoured form that despite the brilliant hatching that draws out suggestions of mass under light, is also flat and razor sharp. That tactile quality - its acuity - sticks in the mind, along with the diffuse nature of the rendered printed mass. The floating swirling lines of the black images upstage the solid waxy white figures.
John Hurrell
Shows on ice are poles apart - By T.J. McNamara
Conveying suffering are two new sculptures by Sam Harrison at the Fox/Jensen Gallery. These are expressive nude figures done in a manner that goes back through Rodin to Donatello.
The thing that makes them more modern is that they are formally related to a specific surface. Curled Woman buries her head on the floor hard against a wall. Seated Woman is on a simple block shape. Both have their heads in their hands so they are anonymous. They are modelled in plaster and polished with wax so they resemble marble. Even so, they cry out to be in bronze.
The modelling is splendidly done. The back of both figures takes its weight and articulation from the ribs where they reach the spine and the bones increase the pathos. The twisting of the feet of the woman curled against the wall is a detail that also adds to the effect.
The expressive use of bones and musculature is also part of the power of two huge woodcuts printed in black that complete the show. Prints of any sort, especially woodcuts, tend to be small images often used for book illustration. These prints are life-size. The shading that describes the light and shadows is created by rhythmic parallel cuts related to the techniques of engraving.
In their nakedness their backs are like a rocky landscape but their general demeanour is of lost souls, their loneliness creased by the dark shadows that accompany them. They have an extraordinary dark presence. Harrison continues to make his way along his unfashionable path with ever-increasing assurance.