There seem to be many faces to the paintings of Gregory Frank Harris.  Some of them are serious, are in subtle ways introspective, but most deal very competently with light.  The Michael Smith Gallery shows the more representational side of his work, and he is the only contemporary artist shown in the gallery.   These, primarily western regional landscape oil paintings of various sizes, demonstrate a strong feeling for color, reflected light, and an understanding of shadows and atmosphere.  The paintings are deeply involved with a specific scene at a specific time of day or season.  One feels transported  to a rocky New Mexico mountainside in full afternoon heat, or a grassy field with distant morning fog, or, one sits in the shade of a cottonwood and, through Mr. Harris, gazes up a small arroyo, marveling at the scene bathed in a golden light.

But Gregory has also explored Wolf Kahn, Gerhard Richter, Basquiat, Warhol, and Diebenkorn, and many of his other sides reflect these color field, line based or social commentary modernists.

His formal training is strong, but also very much his own.  Born in California in 1953, he has been a visual artist since age five when he began showing strength in both drawing and sculpture.  Over the years he spent time studying theater, ceramics, watercolors, musical composition, nineteenth century World Impressionism, piano, pastels, and finally plein air painting.  He attended Long Beach State University in California, studied at the Art Students League in New York City, the Fechin Institute in Taos, and with the Putney Painters Group in Vermont.  He once moved to Lyme, Connecticut, just to paint the landscape there.  He has also been consistently able to find the right teacher at the right time.   These include instructors such as David Leffel, Robert Maione, and life drawing with Gustave Rehberger.  He also participated in painting workshops with John Encinias and Matt Smith.

These days Mr. Harris is considered an "up and coming" New Mexico landscape painter primarily because of his handling of light.  Gallery visitors and critics each experience his work in soothing, refreshing ways, and often relate it to a slow stroll through the landscape pictured.

PAINTING METHODS

The most common method I use in constructing my oil painting is what is referred to as direct painting or alla prima, in which the paint is applied at one sitting in front of the subject.  I begin with a transparent wash to tone the canvas, then, I loosely draw in the general composition.  Working from background to foreground, I lay in the paint with as accurate colors as I can.

The larger studio paintings are usually created from small, on location studies, plus photo references.

Most of my pictures are a combination of brush and palette knife techniques depending on edge quality, the softness or hardness of forms, i.e., leaves, rocks or blurred distances, etc.  I also have very soft brushes that I can use to go back in areas of the painting to adjust the edges.

A smooth canvas tooth versus a rough texture will also determine the paint application.  For sunlit scenes, I tend to paint thicker with more impasto on a more textured canvas or panel.  When I paint an atmospheric scene, I'll use a thinner application of paint, blurring the edges with a brush or knife on a smooth canvas or panel.

My plein air paintings are usually painted on lead primed linen mounted to birch or masonite panels.  The larger studio pictures are on stretched linen or canvas.  Sometimes I gesso masonite panels with a textural effect to add a certain tension under the overlaying colors.

On occasion, I do a monochrome or general color underpainting, and let that dry to be later "glazed" with transparent washes.  That type of technique goes back to the Old Masters and nineteenth century artists.

Read more about Plein Air versus Studio Paintings written by Gregory Frank Harris.

Click here or the picture to view more Gregory Frank Harris Paintings in our Gallery. 

Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM, 2006, 16"x 20", Oil on Linen