Joan Harrison

Joan Harrison
Glen Cove, New York, USA

STATEMENT

As a child I would cut pictures of rooms, people and products out of magazines and create moveable collages of images. I played with these like flat doll houses. My first serious collages dealt with this sort of domestic subject matter in combination with pencil drawing. Later, ladders, bones and birds, vintage papers, handwriting, exotic alphabets and bits of Buddhist art found their way into the work. Children’s sewing cards, transferware pottery, the commercial photographs of ringl + pit as well as outsider art influence my visual thinking. My new work is more abstract and liable to include thread, ink, printed digital manipulation and 3D paper elements. I am always looking for ways to expand the medium. Being surrounded by scraps of paper with glue on my fingers makes me happy! Images and Ideas @joanhstudio on Instagram.

BIO

I work with many different media including photography, printmaking, drawing, watercolour, fibre and clay, but my heart is in collage. During 35 years of teaching art I was privileged to share my love of images and materials with generations of students from non-majors to MFA candidates. I am a Professor Emerita of Long Island University and am currently enjoying extended time in my studio. My work has been shown and published internationally and I have had residencies at the Polaroid 20×24 Studio, Visual Studies Workshop and the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice. John and Joan Digby included my work in the seminal reference volume, The Collage Handbook, published by Thames and Hudson in 1985. My article on the Digbys and their imprint, New Feral Press, can be seen in issue #28 of Kolaj.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
www.joanharrison.com

IMAGES