2003

Paramount Award

Jeffrey Harris is the winner of the Paramount Award for his work “From Dream 2838"”. The Paramount Award winner receives $35,000 for a six-month residency in the U.K.residency in association with the Link Foundation with airfares, and a bronze trophy by leading New Zealand sculptor Terry Stringer.

Jeffrey Harris (b.1949)

‘Jeffrey Harris’s career as a self-taught artist has enabled him to embark on a deeply personal journey of self-discovery through the medium of paint. Born and raised in Akaroa in the Banks Peninsula, Harris’s lack of a formal art education has allowed him to develop a distinctly unique style, which over the years has responded to the nuances of his time. Largely recognized for his figurative painting, Harris’s works are concerned with the intricacies of relationships and emotions. They are often autobiographical and highly symbolic depictions of couples or family groups in domestic settings. Harris’s images of domesticity are deceiving as Harris will often highlight the divisions and fractures that occur as relationships dissolve and fragment. The fragility of the institution of family is communicated through formal means where figures are often isolated and the composition is broken up through colour and disproportionate elements.’

“In all of Jeffrey Harris’s work we are aware of his determination to convey an intensity of experience; to create images which stay in our minds and which can clarify and enlarge our awareness. They are loaded and uneasy images which though contemplative are seldom calm.” (Brownson, Ronald (ed.) Anxious Images: Aspects of New Zealand Art, Auckland City Art Gallery: Auckland, 1984:35)

All text courtesy of John Leech Gallery (http://www.johnleechgallery.co.nz)