Jeffrey Harris: {Suite} Ponsonby

(Suite} is honoured to present an exhibition of paintings by significant New Zealand
artist Jeffrey Harris. This will be Harris's first exhibition of new paintings in 10 years
and his first in Auckland in over 20 years.

After more than 50 years with a paintbrush in his hand, Harris is able to condense lived experience into a distinctive enamel-like richness. Liberated from narrative, his figures resolve into their constituent forms, lines and colours, encouraging us to find connection in each chime and rhyme of pattern.

Since rising to prominence as one of New Zealand's most notable painters in the 1970s Harris's artistic practice has operated in a similar way, his artistic style constantly evolving while continuing to revisit familiar symbolic motifs. With a more refined and nuanced hand that comes with five decades of experience, Harris's heads no longer feel violently decapitated. Instead, these recent paintings work to gently beckon the viewer more deeply than ever before into the strange and beautiful inner world inside Harris's own head.

Excerpts from catalogue essays by Linda Tyler and Dr Chelsea Nicholls