HOWARD HARRIS
Howard Harris is an American Techspressionist artist who skillfully combines technology and aesthetics to expand the viewer’s experience of photographic art. He explores dimensional photography, influenced by quantum physics, chaos theory, and op art. Blending media, color, and abstraction, his work attempts to recreate the dynamic perceptual experience with all its hidden complexities. In his patented process, the Denver-based artist uses a single, often abstracted, image layered over itself with a subtle grid printed on a clear acrylic surface and superimposed over the base image. The resulting visual phenomenon infuses the image with dimensionality and fluidity. The combined image is affected by such changes as the viewing angle and light. While perceptual mechanics play a crucial role, equally important are the universal design principles that create the qualities we recognize as beauty. The artist says, “In any given moment, what we see reflects both our inner state and a synthesis of outer qualities—light, color, movement, space.”
Harris graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and the Pratt Institute, earning a master’s degree in industrial design. Harris has spent his career negotiating between art and design, creating within others’ parameters, as his desire to create for others often overpowered his desire to create for himself. He now has shifted his motivation to create for himself first. Deeply interested in the principles of design that produce beauty and aesthetics, Harris’s work elevates the art of photography and displays a deep understanding of abstraction.
HOWARD HARRIS ON
Visual reality is an ever-shifting, highly individualized experience. In any given moment, what we see reflects our inner state and synthesis of outer qualities— light, color, movement, and space. My exploration as a techspressionist in photographic art represents an attempt to recreate the perceptual experience, with its dynamic nature and hidden complexities.
All of my images are presented on an aluminum surface. In many of my photographic constructions, a single, often abstracted image is layered over itself with a subtle grid printed on a clear acrylic surface and superimposed over the base image. The resulting visual phenomenon infuses the image with a sense of dimensionality and fluidity affected by such changes as the angle of viewing and light. Yet perceptual mechanics are only part of the equation. Equally essential are universal principles of design that produce qualities we perceive as beauty. This is my aim: to skillfully combine technology and aesthetics in a way that expands the viewer’s experience of photographic art.
