The Harwood Paintings
The double entendre of title and site relates to a time spent in artist’s residence and a large body of artwork-paintings, video, installations produced during a short stay in the apartments and studio of bert harwood in the summer of 2009.
The stormy irridscence of Taos light, the haunted hallways of the historic flat, the time immersed in dialogue with ghosts and characters all form a gauzelike memory. The weekly visits to D.H. Lawrence’s pseudo pornographic paintings hidden away behind curtains and the childhood remembrances of viewing these paintings in the old La Fonda-the long walk down a long hallway lined with men’s polished black shoes, at least 20 pair- and the early morning walks to Manby’s lilac garden, all form the internal discourse taken to make this work.
Colored in a Susan Sontag “camp”, the paintings strive to shock some blend of happiness and meloncholy out of the viewer while all the while embracing some rewrite of history, some “rightedness” of the way things were…are.