Jeffrey Harris' first major exhibition since 2004, ''Renaissance Days'' offers an illuminating, fresh twist on the concept of people and place, writes Shane Gilchrist.
Among the 22 Jeffrey Harris paintings on display in a work-room below the Dunedin Public Art Gallery's exhibition spaces, a couple shine brighter than others.
Notably, they are small in scale. Nonetheless, they possess a jewel-like intensity.
''Paintings such as Jeremy (2015) and Anna (2015) are unmistakably new - bright, over-saturated and of this moment,'' exhibition curator Lucy Hammonds offers, her explanation allowing a segue for the artist himself to ruminate on what sits before us.
Best known for large, gestural paintings populated by historical references and personal narratives, the Dunedin-based Harris points out his forthcoming exhibition, ''Renaissance Days'', which opens next Saturday, November 28, has been informed by a combination of his affection for the landscapes of Banks Peninsula and Otago, as well as overseas trips over the past decade.
In Europe, he saw and studied many paintings (particularly, as the title of his exhibition notes, Renaissance works).
''Often, I'd walk straight past a lot of the big paintings in galleries and be drawn to the smaller works. That intimacy and one-to-one dialogue appeals to me. And that's what I'm trying to convey in these paintings.''
Notably, of the ''Renaissance Days'' pieces that feature more than one character, few offer any significant interplay between or among characters, bolstering the remaining (mainly single-figure) portraits' hint of isolation or rumination.
''I have dealt with interplay - be it psychological or relationships - a lot in previous work. Personal dramas are something I'm often associated with, but I'm no longer interested in that,'' Harris says.
Hammonds says ''Renaissance Days'' represents an important series of recent works by Harris, one of the senior figures of New Zealand painting.
In fact, it is his first major exhibition since 2004, also held at the DPAG.
''Jeffrey has done smaller-scale paintings but they are generally not held by public institutions and aren't seen as regularly. This is the first time this series of more recent paintings has been brought together.
''Some have been painted over several years. Some have been started then returned to. The exhibition is in chronological order, by date of completion, and that provides a sense of the rhythm of the works and the motifs Jeffrey returns to.
''Although they are grounded in an earlier series of works drawn from personal photographs and archives, his attention has shifted towards more generic media sources: the kinds of figures who haunt the pages of the fashion press and the lifestyle magazine,'' Hammonds explains.
''As the works progress, there is an increasingly stylised approach. The obvious information and detail is getting stripped away and, to me, that builds a slightly foreboding sense about the works ... I think they feel very contemporary in their concerns.''
Harris says his more recent works possess both a sharpness and intensity, a result of a painstaking methodology in which the concept of attention to detail has been further illuminated by bold use of colour and strong light sources that provide a greater depth.
''The way the lines of the landscape draw you in also adds to the intensity. A lot of my earlier paintings were much flatter; they don't have the depth I'm trying to achieve in these paintings.''
To use Jeremy and Anna as examples, both are heavily stylised portraits inspired, interestingly, by magazine images.
''There is an androgynous quality to both,'' Harris says, adding their interchangeable nature adds to an overall tension.
''I've been working in this area for about 10 years and I can see further development of this approach,'' Harris says.
''Earlier, I'd done lots of print-making, drawing, works on paper, none of which I do any more. Painting like this means I have to devote a lot of time if I want to make something really stand out. And that's what I've decided to do.
''I paint them, then repaint and repaint. Two years would be a minimum. I usually work on six or seven at the same time. I only work on them when they are dry, because working wet on wet means you can't get that level of fineness.
''Also, having them around for a long time allows you to make observations, or shift a line or a tree this way or that to get the right composition. When you are working against time or towards a specific exhibition you don't have that luxury.
''I don't want to work for the market or the gallery system any more because it doesn't allow you the freedom to develop a unique style.''
That raises another point: when does Harris know when a piece is finished?
''I like to have them around for a month without having touched them. I'll just look and look. If someone takes one away too soon, it just doesn't feel right.''
Fact file
Jeffrey Harris
• Born in 1949 in Christchurch, Harris lived there until the late 1960s. A self-taught painter, he received early encouragement from artists including Ralph Hotere and Michael Smither.
• Harris' first exhibition was held in Dunedin in 1969, and he shifted to Dunedin in the early 1970s. The University of Otago Hodgkin's Fellow in 1977, he left for Melbourne in the late 1980s, and in 2000 returned to Dunedin, where he continues to live.
• In 2003, Harris won New Zealand's most prestigious art prize, 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.
• 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.
• In 2008, Te Papa paid a record $150,000 for a Harris work, Self-portrait (1970), a work based on 16th-century German painter Dürer's portrait of Christ.
• ''Renaissance Days'', by Jeffrey Harris, opens at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery on Saturday, November 28, and runs until March 20, 2016.
