The work: Nikki Harris, Walking Away, 2020. Ink-transfer and acrylic, 100 x 80cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Melbourne-based artist Nikki Harris surmises her practice as one wherein she is “a slap happy painter and a snap happy photographer, embracing perfect imperfections, and pushing boundaries between mediums”. Her works exist within a reality all of the artist’s own, formed by a hybrid of photography and painting that was borne from innovation during a drought crisis which made using dark-rooms difficult. In Walking Away, we see the artist’s preference for high-contrast black and white photography meet with her appetite for bright colours and abstract surfaces. The work depicts an interaction the artist had on a trip to Laos, featuring a young girl turning to attend to her flock of chickens. This image is transferred by hand piece-by-piece on to the prepared canvas, which has been adorned with splashes of pink, ochre and pastel. Deliberately, Harris only transferred part of the image, wishing to retain the texture and movement of paint on the right-hand side of the canvas, which works to emphasise the distinction between the two mediums. The result is a playful work of contrasts that mirrors the hybridity of her practice. The sense of joy that this approach conveys is essential to Harris, for whom art acts as an essential avenue for escapism.