Photography by Nicole Page-Smith
In 2004, Jeffrey Harris and his partner, Nicole Page-Smith, went on their first European vacation, together. The trip was the reward of a prestigious, New Zealand, contemporary art prize, donated to Jeffrey Harris, including a three month, London, residency. In the same year, Harris, saw the opening of a large, touring, retrospective, exhibition, established by the local council run gallery, in Dunedin. The New Zealand artist, Jeffrey Harris, won the contemporary art prize, for a large canvas, from a series of orange, black and white paintings, heavily, Francis Bacon, influenced, also reminding us of the emotional turmoil of Edvard Munch and the refined lines of the French Neoclassical painter, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, along with late Renaissance, Mannerist, painters such as Parmigianino, Jacopo Pontormo and, Bronzino. The pair travelled frequently to Europe over the next ten years, visiting museums of well established collections and exhibitions of Northern and Italian Renaissance artists such as Mantegna, Rogier van der Weyden, Durer, Zurbaran and Messina. During this time, until the present, Jeffrey Harris, has also, been working away, quietly, with several catalogue books from his vast reference library as background information. The small paintings, now on display at the same local council run gallery, in Dunedin, also refer to family photographs and fashion magazines, for a model. Some of the paintings require a Crucifix while others are more reminiscent of the Holy Family group. Often, portraiture for, Jeffrey Harris, has a blurred reference to self portraiture and the paintings seem aware of being self conscious. Several of the paintings are simply portrait heads of an unknown, ambiguous, source. Some of the small, very, refined, paintings have recently been exhibited, in a current exhibition, "Renaissance Days", now on display at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, in Dunedin, New Zealand, until the 20th of March, 2016.
