SKIN HORIZONS

Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea – Milano / Milan, Gennaio / February -April 2022 . 

Credo che la pittura sia essenzialmente instabile e ipersensibile. Sono in-  uenzato dalle mutevoli condizioni e situazioni in cui ci si può imbattere nel fare dipinti. Quelli di Skin Horizons sono   essibili e aperti, diretti e ri essivi.

Sembrano essere in grado di assorbire le molecole e le idee del mondo al loro interno, direttamente nelle loro super ci. Passano attraverso quelle sollecitazioni e quei movimenti simili a quelli che attraversano i nostri corpi, oltre a ricreare il movimento geologico ed entropico, il tutto illuminato da un accresciuto senso del colore urbano. Voglio che il tempo stesso dia forma alla super  cie e  ll’immagine.

I believe Painting is essentially unstable and hypersensitive. I’m addicted to the changing conditions and situations one can enter through making paintings. The Skin Horizon paintings feel   flexible and open, direct and reactive. They seem to be able to absorb the molecules and ideas of the world into them, directly into their surfaces! They go through the similar strains and movements that our bodies go through, as well as re-creating geological and entropic movement; all lit via a heightened sense of Urban colour; I want time itself to shape the surface and image.

SKIN DEEP

MAC – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone, Italy, 2020

In occasione del Premio Lissone 2018, la Giuria formata da Marco Meneguzzo, Demetrio Paparoni e dal qui scrivente aveva assegnato il “Premio MAC” a Alexis Harding, riconoscimento che gli ha permesso di programmare una mostra personale al Museo di Lissone. L’esposizione, che si concretizza a distanza di due anni, mette in luce la densit. e intensit. cromatica dell’artista… 

ALEXIS HARDING 60 PAINTINGS:

COOMBS CONTEMPORARY –  Watson Farley & Williams, London, 2019

There is an unusual process behind the paintings of Alexis Harding. He works with two layers – a base layer of oil paint, mixed with large quantities of linseed oil, which takes many weeks to dry; then on top of this a layer of fast-drying industrial gloss paint, which hardens within hours.

An intricate wrinkled skin forms on the surface of his paintings, which is cut into, dragged, pulled, pushed, folded, crumpled, creased, plaited, pleated, ruched, puckered, knitted and intertwined with the layer beneath….

STIRRINGS STILL

Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea – Milano / Milan, Gennaio / January – Marzo / March 2016

The surfaces of Harding’s paintings are evident and explicit; they challenge the observer directly. But they are also refractory and elusive surfaces which flee.

The space in the artist’s work is potentially unlimited; a shifting space of thought and movement, aerial and corporal. Harding’s work can be read as both a reflection and criticism of our hyper-modern times, our ‘non real reality’. 

Alexis Harding Bi-product Depositories

Mummery + Schnelle – 27 November – 19 December 2009

For six years Harding has been using the plain cardboard covers of a 2003 catalogue of his work as drawing boards and depositories for the bi-product of his studio practice. Now numbering 120, these studies will be installed on one wall of the main gallery space at Mummery + Schnelle.

Collectively they act as companions to the paintings made over the same period and provide a unique insight into Harding’s thoughts and working processes.

Surfaced: Surface and Materiality in the Screen Environment:

Thames-Side Studios Gallery –  Curated by Jim Cheatle, London, 19-27 May 2018

There exists what we call images of things Which as it were peeled off from the surfaces
Of objects, fly this way and that through the air…
I say therefore that likenesses or thin shapes. Are sent out from the surfaces of things
Which we must call as it were their films or bark.
Titus Lucretius Carus, c. 99 BC–55 BC

Our relationship with the screen and the interface isn’t simply a visual one, it has changed from being a tool that we used at our leisure, to a necessary conduit for social interaction…