A new exhibition of digital paintings by Sechelt-based artist Susan Harman translates time and space into large-scale images that defy their two dimensions.
Harman’s latest series of creative art photographs opened on Nov. 2 with a reception at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery. Harman works at the junction of disciplines: she is a practised photographer, filmmaker, designer and painter who moulds visual fragments using computer software. “One of the most complicated things for me,” she admitted, “is actually coming up with a category for my work.”
Harman’s solo show in the Eve Smart Gallery is linked to an earlier exhibition at the Gibsons Public Market (in 2022), which was a study of grief and her search for answers. At its conclusion, and resolving to “do something larger,” Harman travelled to Telegraph Cove and toured the community’s Whale Interpretive Centre. She was mesmerized by the collection of bones, ropes and sailors’ histories.
“It moved me,” she recalled. She began assembling and layering photographs, ultimately producing the eponymous work of the new series: From the Belly of the Whale. “I realized, looking at it, that I had been feeling shipwrecked and that I had now surfaced from my grief — and rather than living in it, I was living with it,” Harman explained. In the work, sea-spray breaks over a convergence of crisp-lined geometries with weather-worn patina, set against an inky background.
As in all of Harman’s images, the passage of time is vivisected. “I take still images and try to make a film out of them,” she said. She taught colour theory and visual literacy for two decades at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and strives to provide subtle visual maps through her “rule-breaking” abstracts.
The emotional gravity of each work — like Ravens Ride, in which silhouetted birds reel across a crystalline sky — is the result of careful calculus. Recurring elements such as waves reflect the influence of the Sunshine Coast landscape, and echo the periodicity that measures universal human experience. In The Language of Trees, the canvas is divided: above, barren branches spread over a monochromatic landscape; below, the mirrored tendrils cross a cobalt sky. The visceral harmonies of Tidal Subconsciousness pulse with directed energy; brilliant aquamarine arcs guide the eye across a flurry of tones that evoke earth, sea, and treeline.
“Sometimes I make up forests,” said Harman, “or there’s sort of a story and made-up characters.” Her earliest photographs were captured on the Polaroid Model 20 “Swinger” instant camera that she used to catalogue birds and trees. Her mother (whose death was an impetus for Harman’s series on grief) was also an admirer of birds. Natural and family connections are abundant in Harman’s abstracts; during the show’s opening a young woman approached her and pointed to a specific work while quietly weeping.
“She said, ‘This is my dad. And this is my mom. I can see them in it and feel them in it,’” said Harman. “The most amazing response is when people feel something, because I want to make images that have a meaning.”
Susan Harman’s From the Belly of the Whale exhibition remains on display at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery until Nov. 24.
