Artist's Statement

There is a strong element of constructive play at work in the Art of Carolyne Honey Harrison. In the beginning there is no goal, only process. In the beginning the process is primordial. As the element of play creates a rhythm, a pattern and then a style, the work begins to take form, to talk to the painter. Then the trick in the making of the painting is to listen carefully, to let the rhythm and style create a personal pattern of truth.

Her personal aesthetic has been informed by her interest in Jungian Philosophy and the theory of the collective unconscious, with its inherent idea of an imagery that is common to all of humanity; thus her paintings allude to an archaic iconography of symbols and archetypes. The references are doors, archways, trees, roots and anthropomorphic forms as well as the archetypal figures of dreams. Her paintings are imbued with her love of colour and reciprocal relation of colour to colour, as well as the juxtaposition of light and dark, male and female, to produce a phenomenon of mystery.

Technically she paints on canvas or wood panel, using layers of acrylic under painting, paste impasto, sometimes collage, usually sgraffito, and finally drawing with charcoal and oil stick. Layer by layer, using the various idioms of painting, she poses her own questions. She intends that the work will evoke in the viewer fragments of awareness that are buried in the mind and that connect to a common human experience.

"Make way for the intelligence of the senses". Paul Emil Borduas 1905-1960

Home PageIndex