Mar­sha Pearce

"I paint more in­tu­itive­ly now. To be an in­tu­itive painter the artist has to be in­formed all the time. You have to be such a well of knowl­edge that you let it bub­ble up when you come to the can­vas," says Carlisle Har­ris, whose ex­hi­bi­tion of work cre­at­ed be­tween 2012 and 2013 opened at 101 Art Gallery on May 21. Har­ris in­stinc­tive­ly draws on ex­pe­ri­ences, us­ing his sub­con­scious as a rich re­source for im­age-mak­ing. This artist once worked from a pre­con­ceived plan.

He would cre­ate sketch­es and trans­pose them on­to can­vas. For many years now, how­ev­er, he has been hon­ing the prac­tice of cre­ative in­tu­ition. "The things that I have been dwelling on ex­pose them­selves in the work. I don't de­ter­mine what I am go­ing to paint," Har­ris says. The re­sult is a body of work with no over­ar­ch­ing, pre­de­ter­mined theme and an ex­hi­bi­tion with­out a mas­ter ti­tle. "I was a the­mat­ic painter but I don't feel the need to do that, not that I think it is un­nec­es­sary, but it is not of tremen­dous val­ue to me. I am the theme. I am try­ing to clar­i­fy thoughts on past work. I am try­ing to say the same things bet­ter." With Har­ris' turn to­wards spon­tane­ity, there is ev­i­dence of an evo­lu­tion of his vi­su­al style from his ear­ly days as a prac­tis­ing artist. Har­ris re­turned toTrinidad in 1973 af­ter earn­ing an MFA in paint­ing from Howard Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, DC. He served as the vice-prin­ci­pal of John S Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute and was the pres­i­dent of the Art So­ci­ety for many years. He is al­so a pro­lif­ic de­sign­er, hav­ing pro­duced cos­tumes and set de­signs as well as ma­que­ttes for mu­rals. In his past work, his ren­der­ing of shapes was more con­strained. In con­trast, his re­cent works con­vey an un­fet­tered ex­e­cu­tion with a loos­er ap­proach to space and shape on can­vas.

This free­dom and his ex­tem­po­ra­ne­ous treat­ment in his art-mak­ing process are sup­port­ed by his use of cer­tain me­dia and ma­te­ri­als. Along with acrylic paint and oil pas­tels, Har­ris adds tex­ture and serendip­i­ty to the work with tis­sue pa­per and mod­el­ling paste. "The pa­per aids a lot be­cause many ef­fects can be ac­ci­den­tal," says Har­ris. Har­ris al­so finds him­self de­vi­at­ing from paint­ing recog­nis­able hu­man fig­ures. "I am mov­ing from the fig­u­ra­tive el­e­ment, though it is pre­served in some ways. A lot of the pieces I am proud of are very far away from rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al work but it is hard to fight off. I have to fight with my­self," he says. Through ab­stract forms, Har­ris ad­dress­es and com­mu­ni­cates an in­ward land­scape. Pieces like Vis­cer­al Vi­bra­tions, In­ner Realm and In­to My Soul dis­close his thoughts and feel­ings.

Rather than come from a place of pre­med­i­ta­tion, these vis­cer­al works no longer lec­ture to the view­er. In­stead, the artist is speak­ing to him­self. What he now in­vites au­di­ences to par­tic­i­pate in is a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween him­self and his paint­ings."In the past I was push­ing peo­ple to take an­oth­er look at them­selves, to gar­ner their in­ter­est in self-re­liance and do­ing good for self and every­one else–maybe be­cause I was a teacher. Now I am telling my­self, 'Do your good works.' I have be­come more in­tro­spec­tive."As part of his ef­forts to work in­tu­itive­ly, the artist paints and then ti­tles each piece. He notes that it is not dif­fi­cult to give a ti­tle to a paint­ing be­cause the piece al­lows him to con­front and ac­knowl­edge as­pects of his per­son­al jour­ney. Such paint­ings as Nu­ances of Geth­se­mane and Ju­bilee seem to tell of mo­ments in Har­ris' life char­ac­terised by men­tal suf­fer­ing and cel­e­bra­tion. Yet Har­ris does not re­veal all to us."I am still pri­vate. I won't tell all. You get a glimpse in­to my psy­che and that is mod­u­lat­ed by my tech­nique." Each of his paint­ings is a sub­con­scious ef­fort to make sense of and de­vel­op self. "If you give me a large can­vas, I will just start work­ing. You can make all your mis­takes there, ex­pe­ri­ence all your heartaches there and be tri­umphant."Along with this ex­hi­bi­tion, Carlisle Har­ris launched a mono­graph fea­tur­ing an ar­ray of his art­works.

The ex­hi­bi­tion ends May 30 at 101 Art Gallery, 84 Wood­ford Street, New­town, Port-of-Spain. In­fo: 628-4081, or markn­pereira@gmail.com