Oil Painting
Samantha Harrison is a recent graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, with a BFA majoring in painting. She was born and raised in BC’s lower mainland. Her works consists primarily of oil paintings featuring traditional still-lives, or the human figure, painted in a Classical Realist, or Hyperrealistic style. She has won multiple scholarships, including the Michael J. Fox Visual and Performing Arts Scholarship, the Vancouver Art Guild Scholarship, and the Ian Gillespie Aboriginal Art Scholarship. Her recent exhibition history includes Art Rich 2019, at Richmond Art Gallery, and The Hands Talk, at Emily Carr University, among others.
She is inspired by the concept of perfection, and its correlations with definitions of goodness and virtue, however controversial these correlations may sometimes be. Painting for her is about translation. The translation of images through the filter of sight and mind, and the ultimately imperfect recording that is obtained in a painting, regardless of any diligent attempt to transcribe the images accurately. These minor deviations from the truth of sight hint at the limitation of human ability, and aim to make the viewer wonder exactly what it means to pursue a perfect image, and by extension to seek to define goodness and correctness – despite our obvious shortcomings and inability to be free of moral contradiction. Pursuing and expanding on these ideas in her work is something she is continually working toward, in both style and subject matter.
Questions? I’m friendly!
Contact me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samanthas.painting
