Creating by intuition
A chat with local artist Krista Harris

Krista Harris sits below her mixed-media piece, entitled “The Calligrapher,” at the Ellis Crane Gallery on Monday morning./Photo by Todd Newcomer

by Jules Masterjohn

ome artists just have “it.” For me, this “it” is an element of soul, a presence in a work that expresses more than what is perceived visually. Krista Harris is an artist whose work resonates with my deeper self. She has been a graphic designer by trade for years and recently has taken a sabbatical from the commercial world to dedicate her time to the pursuit of fine art. Lucky for us … she now has more time to create and share from the extensive reservoir of artistic material collecting inside her mind.

Harris’ use of line and color, whether found in her commercial graphic design work such as the Sahaira’s Salon sign or her oil paintings of bicycles, horses or chairs, is always a strong draw for my visual sensibilities. Her paintings create lasting memories that I can call up in my mind with ease. Perhaps this is her commercial artist side melding with her master fine artist side that creates images that grab and hold one’s attention. But her grab is soft and gentle, a teasing glance would be a more apt description.

The body of work by Harris that currently hangs at the Ellis Crane Gallery embraces one of the oldest subjects in art’s history, that of the female nude. Her mixed media paintings could not be misconstrued as sexual or described as erotic, yet they are not academic figure studies either. Conjured up from the unconscious aspects of her imagination, the larger-than-life-sized female forms politely request attention. Though huge, the rotund bodies are pleasingly proportioned and offer, to this viewer, an archetypal portrayal of the Earth-Mother-Goddess, each painting a portrait of creativity itself.

There is a vastness to these female bodies that reminds me of the expanses of the red rock landscape of Utah’s Canyonlands. For me, the relationship between Harris’s women and the flesh-toned weatherworn bedrock is the embodiment of femininity, a creative force that is old, deep and universal, which courses through both her work and the rocks, quietly calling us to come play. As the eons-old bedrock invites us to follow her undulating surfaces, Harris beckons us to explore the curvaceous lines and subtle colorations she places in the paintings for her own, and thus our, aesthetic enjoyment.

The pure pleasure of the creative process and a spontaneous approach is tantamount for Harris. Working intuitively, she allows the translucent color washes, which she initially applies over the surface of her paper, to suggest what comes next. “I start with backgrounds and textures and the figure just appears … like I’m developing a photograph. I’ll come back in with some metallic paint, resists, oil pencil crayon, stenciling, stamping, anything to keep it fresh and fun. I like that playful quality in artwork. I come away from the paintings with paint and ink all over me. I just love it.”

An obvious element in Harris’ paintings is her graphic use of line. Whether her delicate inky strokes outline ginko leaves or her graphite pencil illustrates a ripe plant pod, her work demonstrates her well-developed skills in drawing. She says there’s just something about “the line” that she can’t help making. “The art that I’ve always been drawn to, like the more graphic works of Robert Motherwell and Picasso, have an affinity for lines, beautiful lines. When I was growing up, people would say about my painting, ‘You just have to get away from the line.’ Though I tried, I just couldn’t, it’s just the way I see. Line is like conversation, like the highs and lows in speech, I equate it to music or sound.”

The inspiration to use the human form came from viewing classical Roman sculptures like the Venus de Milo during a recent trip to Europe. For Harris, the human figure was an unexpected choice as a subject, though she has, as do most formally trained painting students, a substantial background in figure drawing. After the first figure emerged from her paper, Harris admitted, “I was shocked that I had painted a nude.” She believes that maturity has played an even more important role in her newfound subject. “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to paint nudes as a younger person. Part of the thing that has happened to me is that I turned 50 last year. I’ve been an artist for years and decided that I just had to try it.”

Having watched Harris develop as an artist over the last five years, I don’t expect her to have found her niche with the figure. Though she often works in a series that explores a subject matter or theme, she has always found that variety inspires her most. “The process of experimenting with materials is primary, the figure is secondary.” This statement leads me to believe that there is no niche large enough for Harris’ voracious passion for creating. Her own taste for art verifies her insatiable creative nature. “I love art that stirs me up, but I love also art that grows with you, constantly intrigues, inspires or calms. I want to make art that endures as our tastes change - mine change constantly. The mark of a successful painting is one that can grow with you.”

For Harris, it’s all about the act of painting as it was for one of her mentors, Pablo Picasso. She draws inspiration from his work and admires his creative energy and life-long productivity. Like Picasso, Harris has explored many themes in her art and experimented with many media. She heartily agrees with him when it comes to his ideas on success: “Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.” This is perhaps one of the reasons we will continue to see fresh, juicy and exploratory art from Harris. “I work totally intuitively, and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. This is how I find myself as an artist … it’s just heaven on earth for me.” •