Salon Impressionism / Photoshop Style

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Salon Impressionism' courtesy Photoshop Harkrader.

A 'gathering' of the circle, Suzi Style.

Warm, safe, inviting, filling and sharing.
One empty chair for the photographer.

Photoshop Computage

A computage created in Photoshop from two Harkader photographs will provide brief drama within a 10 minute video loop that the artist is creating at the Innovation Space laboratory at Virginia Tech. The still above will be in a seamless timeline of video and stills created on i-Movie.

Leather and Lace

Laced leather connect these two shapes together in this detail of Red Onyx III by Harkrader. Thick medium embedded with sand and pumice mixed into the white paint anchor the left lace. Inside that shape lives a small collage. Tension is created as the leather grips the black shape on the right. Living inside this black shape resides a small collage embedded in thick medium of cloth and pumice obscured in the black paint.

Action Abstraction - Splat!

Splat! Harkrader's hand bounces off the face of the canvas after aim, throw, release and contact. Action abstracts may leave evidence of an artist's body movement as clues of one's action on/above the canvas. Art history  was made when artist's; Pollock, de Kooning and Frankenthaler's action abstraction paintings transformed New York City into the post war mecca for the avant-garde.
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/ActionAbstraction

Black Onyx

Black Onyx (detail) resembles a warm-blooded aquatic vertebrate of leather with a fiberous tail. The rusted wire that surrounds, floats the attachment and provides support by penetrating the face of the canvas. Black paint was drizzled (Pollock fashion : )) and poured upon the canvas. The canvas when viewed in its entirety seems to create planetary space of dimension and time...or deep sea environments, below the thermocline, where light does not penetrate.

Afterwords: Lab coat for a mad scientist

 

Detail of Harkrader's 'Afterwords', a lab coat he wore at the Studios on the Square for 4 years.

 Soiled with the paint of many paintings, Harkrader embellished the jacket with collage from fashion and culture magazines, in addition to figurative drawings in paint on the front, rear, sleeves, cuffs, etc. The lab coat was exhibited in an exhibition at KRONOS Gallery located in Staunton, Virginia approx. 2007. Content circling the collage above contains the text 'Afterwords' which is one of his and Elle's favorite breakfast houses in Dupont Circle / Connecticut Ave, Washington, DC. They made multiple trips to DC's Aaron Gallery, which still represents Harkrader's work. Afterwords Cafe and Grill is located in Kramerbooks.

http://www.kramers.com/

Shrine Group Exhibit Opening & You Are Invited

You are invited to 'Shrines and Other Things' Saturday night 8-11pm located in the industrial section of 419 Luck Ave. in Roanoke City. The group exhibit, by title alone may indicate and include others work that is reverent, irreverent, fun, bizarre, and more. Come with you mind and have it open. Above is the Harkrader installation titled 'Crucifixion Fragmenta-the installation of  found and created objects'. This arrangement includes his painting, 3D sculptures, two crucificitions, the Black Madonna, Sacrifice Soldier, all complete with an altar of votive candles, beads, books, floor cloth, communion symbolism and more. This installation is self interpretive leaving room for the viewer to cipher their own meaning from the numerous religious, spiritual and literary content. This event is made possible by Unicorn Stables Project & Tif Robinette.

'Red Onyx VI' resides in the District of Columbia

Detail of Red Onyx VI exhibits approximately a 9x12 inch area at the bottom center section of the canvas face. The actual canvas size is 60"x48". This collage of figures living within the composition is minimal compared to the large red shape that lives above this selection and they give the canvas an erotic tilt. Harkrader's 'Onyx' series is homage to Rothko in the use of a large rectangle located below or above a smaller rectangle as seen in Rothko's fluid color washes on raw canvas. The difference is Harkrader has embellished his canvases to include embedded elements living above, below and beside the rectangles. Deeply embedded collage, fibers, copper, pumice, sand, coal, glass and other media occupy this complex composition described by one viewer as 'Rothko on steroids'. This canvas was sold by Aaron Gallery in Washington, DC to a neighborhood collector.

Happy New Year Canvas Sculpture (detail)

Urban canvas (detail).

Diodes, resistors, plastic, heat sinks, fibers, and copper reside on this canvas face. The same media and medium lie embedded in the epoxy, resin, and color medium mix that cover the canvas and submerge the elements. Urban and  masculine with a touch of feminine as the circle of green fiber reside in the connector sphere. A landscape of earth and urban, organic and digital, masculine and feminine, canvas and sculpture combined into one work of art fabricated to hang on a vertical surface.

Retro Harkrader / Editorial Cartoon Detail

 

Harkrader's early editorial cartoon, "A Far Out Look At Ourselves". The symbolic language from top-left to bottom right is as follows. A space capsule circling the moon, space trash in the form of a can of Tang floating in space, the eye of God shedding a tear, a comet en-route to the earth, an iconic atomic symbol as a planet, the black sun, a bulldozer gouging the environment of North America, a satellite communicating with a polluted city scape and spy in the Canadian mountain peaks, an power sub-station feeding the electrical grid around the world, an up periscope in the North Atlantic, a UFO hovering above the Pacific, a spy observing the launch of a space rocket in Asia, a spy observing underground nuclear missiles silo in South America, an atomic bomb and oil platforms in Europe and Russia, aerial bombing in the South Pacific, a large screw exploring the center of the earth's core, more space trash, a sputnik, and more environmental damage in the Anartica...gasp...gasp. Title and signed by the artist, 'Chico'. (circa 1974.)

An appropriate poem by Judi Stout reads as follows: spastic, plastic, systemic confusion; energized, supervised, calculated illusion; erected, inspected, rejected protrusion; institute, prostitute, instant prosecution; near the beginning, close to ending.....judi stout. Do you remember that one Judi?  

Retro Harkrader / Editorial Cartoon

 

A page from the New River Community College Student Newspaper, dated February 15, 1974 exhibits one of Harkrader's early editorial cartoons titled "A Far Out Look At Ourselves". Surrounded by stories about Nixon's Watergate and early struggles of the Women's Movement and/or the ERA (Equal Rights Administration), this paper represents a blast from the past in journalism, one of Harkrader's classes at the time. More detail of image and content in the next entry above.

Philadelphia Exhibit History

Philadelphia Exhibit History 2009 / Harkrader' s work was represented at edge gallery once located in the 'Olde City' neighborhood of the Center City know for the Betsy Ross House, William Penn, Elfreth's Alley, dive bars and art/design galleries. The gallery, now closed, whose proprietor now operates as an agent for Harkrader. Contact information may be found at Harkrader's website, www.harkraderX.com.

Communion

Communion = In common sharing.

Detail / Floral Object Assembly

Detail of 'Communion': Floral composition / found object assembly. This Harkrader composition consist of an open-faced cordless handset (communication) that is embellished with crystals, glass and metal, all residing on the face of the motherboard of the cordless instrument. Symbolic of communication, hence; communion, which may be interpreted as a means of contact with the supernatural, a higher being, a celebration of the body of Christ, humanity, and ourselves as we 'talk to ourselves' when no one else will listen. This composition is symbolic, elegant, feminine, urban and delicate.

Acqua di Fiori Essenziale Now Exhibiting at Signature 9 Gallery

Acqua di Fiori Essenziale (Essence of the Water Flower)

Harkrader's new painting from his 'Corolla' series is now exhibiting at the Signature 9 Gallery.

Mixed media and medium on Canvas

60 inches x 48 inches

Dance of Origin / Finale

Oh yeah!

Dance of Origin / Detail 2

Dance of Origin / Detail 2 exhibits elements of the lower right canvas face where it becomes very clear about the stringed instrument qualities of this lyrical canvas. The bridge and the bridge springs anchor the fibers (strings) that traverse across the iconic 'sound hole'. The 'hole' is an excavation of sorts embedded with sand. Inside the excavation live the symbolic sperm and ovum, symbolic of the union of male and female or the Roman god and goddess, Mars and Venus. In the context of plant sexuality, Christian Sprengel defined this as 'the revealed secret of nature' (1700's). Like a seed germinating below earth, the embryonic seed sprouts upward seeking light to leaf and fruit.

Canvas Complete after 5 years!

A detailed photograph of 'Dance of Origin' / mixed media on stretched canvas with 3 dimensional elements. Brass posts are anchored to the canvas face by hidden support architecture in the rear. Not shown in this detail is a bridge, similar to that on stringed instruments, where black fibers shown above are anchored to the lower right section of canvas. The 6 fibers pass through multiple wooden pickets in their path up the canvas face. These pickets penetrate a single opening in the canvas face where the canvas were subsequently lashed back together with copper wire, closing the canvas and securing the pickets together.  The 6 fibers merge together and pass through the first, second and third brass post where they all terminate at top left canvas face. Work on this painting began in 2005, part of the 3 dimensional attachments were completed in 2006 and only recently completed in November 2010. Other detail photos to post at later date. This is the first ever stringed instrument incorporated into a painted work of art on stretched canvas.