Artist's paintings 'grotesque, marvellous'

He's a paintbrush-wielding sorcerer who conjures up illusions of the mind.

And even he's not always sure what they're all about. Nigel Benson meets Jeffrey Harris.

A netherworld of colourful artworks lies strewn around the subterranean Bond St studio.

They're propped up against the walls and furniture and cover most visible surfaces.

Jeffrey Harris stands - tall, elegant and grey - among them.

Like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades.

These are good times for the 59-year-old expressionist.

Last November, Te Papa paid a record $150,000 for a Harris work, Self-portrait (1970).

Te Papa communications manager Jane Keig told me at the time the price was at "the upper end of the valuations Te Papa commissioned".

"Self-portrait (1970) is a major work of Harris' and is widely recognised as such," she said.

"Te Papa considers this work to be probably the best example of Harris' self-portraits. The price was supported by prices realised for Harris' work in the last 12 months and by independent valuation."

Harris painted the portrait when he was 21 and considers it "my statement about my vocation as an artist".

"It was good that Te Papa bought the work. But even more important than the money was the approval and recognition of being at that level of people," Harris said this week.

"It's made a lot of people take another look at my work."

Harris' latest exhibition is a series of untitled ink-on-paper works, "The Untitled", at the Brett McDowell Gallery.

"It's the first showing of these works. They're funny, but quite sinister. They've got a sense of humour and a bit of the dark side, as well.

A lot of people who relate to them are different from my traditional clients; like kids. I've had kids walk in here off the street and go `Ya, ya, ya'," he gestures out the studio door to Bond St.

"I've always liked doing different types of things. I do detailed, fine works and portraits and I do some . . . strange things," he smiles.

"I might initially work on something for a year or so and then come back to it 10 years later and then I might do a different body of work as a reaction to that. They're all bits of you."

The most recent Harris showing in Dunedin, at the Brett McDowell Gallery last September, featured just one 1971 work, Girl With Grey Background.

Harris started teaching himself to paint in 1968 in his native Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula.

"I had a normal job and just painted at weekends and built up a body of work. I had my first show in Dunedin [in the Otago Museum foyer] in 1969. That was quite successful and it gave me the confidence to go forward," he says.

"So I came down to Dunedin in 1970 and started painting full-time."

Within a few years, he was the 1977 University of Otago Frances Hodgkins Fellow and regularly exhibiting in New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

In 1986, already established as one of New Zealand's foremost expressionist painters, he moved to Melbourne to take a residency at the Victoria College in Prahran.

Like many self-taught artists, his artworks tell the story of his own journey of self-discovery, offering discourses on relationships, emotions and life.

Harris is as much conduit as architect in his work.

"They come out of my imagination. It's a stream-of-consciousness thing; like dreams. You don't edit it. You just let it go," he says.

"You turn on the tap or open the door and there are these images there. They come out of nowhere, really."

Harris returned to live in Dunedin in 2000 after living in Melbourne for nearly 15 years.

In 2003, he won New Zealand's most prestigious art prize when he was the paramount winner of the James Wallace Art Award with his oil-on-linen work From Dream 2838.

His prize included $35,000 cash, an artist residency in England and a round-the-world airfare.

However, Harris believes there are testing times ahead for New Zealand art.

"These are interesting times. The recession will affect a lot of people, but it won't affect some people as much. Some artists will survive and some won't," he says.

"There are still serious collectors out there. They go on regardless. But, it might affect people who just want a painting to put on the wall."

It's impossible to categorise Harris.

He happily appropriates imagery from whatever catches his eye.

He has long been a student of the great masters, Albrecht Dürer, Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Oskar Kokoschka and Balthazar Klossowski de Rola (Balthus).

He based the work Te Papa bought, Self-portrait (1970), on 16th-century German painter Dürer's portrait of Christ.

He has also been influenced by New Zealand painters, including Colin McCahon, Michael Smither, Rita Angus, Tony Fomison and Philip Clairmont.

Art critic Peter Ireland once described Harris' paintings as "grotesque and marvellous miracles".

"Jeffrey Harris is perhaps the only one of the post-war generation of painters to consistently achieve such original work of undeniably personal origin," he said.

The Dunedin Public Art Gallery published an anthology covering Harris' three decades of art, Jeffrey Harris, in 2005 by former curator Justin Paton, which was a finalist in the illustrative category of the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

See it

"The Untitled" by Jeffrey Harris is on at the Brett McDowell Gallery until May 14.