JAMIE HARRIS
JAMIE HARRIS Copyright © September, 2023 Todd Merrill All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Todd Merrill
Todd Merrill & Associates, Inc. 80 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10013 www.toddmerrillstudio.com Printed in the United States of America Catalog Design and Text: Dallas Dunn
Self published using Lightning Press Totowa, NJ
JAMIE HARRIS Jamie Harris’ spellbinding glass sculptures, which he calls Infusion Blocks, boast a dynamic quality rooted in his ability to capture the alchemy and activity of the glass making process into a static, impenetrable three-dimensional image. Superficially the works present themselves as rich color-field paintings. Vibrant, cascading color combinations expand and contract upon each other, jockeying for space as they are pushed to the picture’s edge. Challenging the inflexible opacity of painting, the innate ability of glass to transmit, reflect, and absorb light creates an ever-changing abstract picture, one that is in a constant dialogue with the surrounding environment. The individual bands of color, stacked weightlessly in their column, have a surprising amount of depth. They converge, though never to the point of full integration. Within each, the divide between the diaphanous and the saturated provides subtle hints into their formation, though ultimately, what we are left with is a moment suspended in time. For Harris, his work is a relentless examination of the purity of color and the limitless modulations that can evoke emotional resonance through visual contrasts. Notably, 20th Century Modernist painters like Mark Rothko, Kenneth Nolan, and Ellsworth Kelly have been a source of inspiration, as has the extensive color theory of Joseph Albers. In the way that the mid-century gestural painters brought a sense of action to their canvases through the application of paint, Harris states, “I wanted to capture that flowing sense of color and movement I see when glass is at 2000 degrees.”
For Harris glass has been a near lifelong obsession. A chance encounter with glass blowing at a summer arts camp captivated him well before he reached his teens. Though he pursued a degree in literature at Brown University, the school’s connection with the Rhode Island School of Design was a deliberate draw, granting him access and opportunity to pursue his devotion to the craft. When Harris moved to New York City in the late 1990s, he was suddenly thrust into a community of artists and makers whose kinship helped develop his own unique design aesthetic. Within the scope of Fine Art there is probably no practice more miraculous, physically demanding, and precarious than glass making. Glass only has a transitory period when it can be manipulated, requiring a team of people to work in tandem to achieve the artist’s ambition. Understandably Harris describes the process as a dance or a performance. His multi-disciplinary method reinterprets traditional techniques, utilizing the foundations of glass blowing as a method of building up an initial form before finishing each work in a kiln, pressing the glass into its ultimate shape, thereby solidifying the image. This act is equal parts experimentation and risk. He describes it as a “science of prediction: anticipating how the color of a bubble blown at the furnace will dilute days later when cast as a solid object, forecasting how fields will distort and move as elements are joined in the casting.” Because the history of glass has primarily been that of a utilitarian craft material, functionality is something that every glass artist must, at
some point, question. Early in his career Harris was able to establish a footing in both applications. Partnerships with Tiffany & Company and Barney’s afforded him the opportunity to sell traditional tabletop items such as vases and bowls, while allowing him the freedom to explore more purely aesthetic endeavors. Today in addition to his fine art glass sculptures, Harris creates unique, hand-made sculptural lighting. Drawing on the contrast between rigid, geometric metal structures and organic, hand-made glass forms, his pendants, sconces, and chandeliers achieve a balanced universality. By altering the opacity, employing metallic finishes, or creating opalescent and iridescent surfaces, the works can sit at either ends of the spectrum from minimal to extravagant. Harris has studied at some of the most prestigious glass schools in the country: The Pilchuck Glass School, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Penland School of Crafts, the Haystack School and the Corning Museum of Glass. He also studied with some of the most renowned glass artists in the world, including Dante Marioni, Josiah McElheny, Benjamin Moore, Kathy Eliot and Ben Edols. His work has been collected by the Mobile Museum of Art (Mobile, AL), the Museum of American Glass (Millville, NJ), and Glasmuseum Ebeltoft (Ebeltoft, Denmark). He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including those from the Corning Museum of Glass, Creative Glass Center of America, Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Metropolitan Contemporary Glass Group. Dallas Dunn, 2023
Circles and Lines Chandelier V, 2023 Glass, Mirror Polished Brass 172h x 45w x 45d inches
Circles and Lines Chandelier II and III, 2022 Glass, Mirror Polished Brass (Each) 63h x 43w x 24d inches
Circles and Lines Chandelier IV, 2023 Glass, Mirror Polished Brass 30h x 108w x 30d inches
Circles and Lines Chandelier VI, 2023 Glass, Mirror Polished Brass 75h x 46w x 40d inches
Nested Discs I, 2022 Glass, Mirror Polished Bronze, LED 16h x 31w x 31d inches
Nested Discs II, 2023 Glass, Mirror Polished Bronze, LED 16h x 31w x 31d inches
Nested Discs III, 2023 Glass, Mirror Polished Bronze, LED 16h x 31w x 31d inches
Infusion Block in Smoke, Steel Blue, Brown and Blue, 2023 Glass, Stainless Steel 16.25h x 15.25w x 1.50d inches
Infusion Block in Light Blue and Ambers, 2014 Glass, Stainless Steel 17h x 12.50w x 4d inches
Infusion Block in Purple, Aubergine, Amber and Aqua, 2014 Glass, Stainless Steel 17h x 12.50w x 4d inches
Infusion Block in Purple, Brown, Red and Light Blues, 2015 Glass, Stainless Steel 18h x 14w x 4d inches
Infusion Pendant III, 2023 Glass, Brass, LEDs 11.75h x 12w x 3.50d inches
Infusion Pendant II, 2023 Glass, Brass, LEDs 11h x 11w x 3.25d inches
Infusion Pendant I, 2023 Glass, Brass, LEDs 10.25h x 9.75w x 3.25d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Pastel Blue and Soft Rose, 2023 Glass, LEDs 18h x 12w x 6d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Soft Rose, 2023 Glass, LEDs 19h x 10w x 5d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Iris Vanilla and Soft Rose, 2023 Glass, LEDs 15.50h x 12w x 5.75d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Sahara and Light Blue, 2023 Glass, LEDs 23h x 11w x 5d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Turquoise and Lilac, 2023 Glass, LEDs 17h x 9w x 5.50d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Avocado, Pale Light Blue, 2023 Glass, LEDs 14h x 9w x 5d inches
Cut Outs Wall Sconce, Champagne and Orange, 2023 Glass, LEDs 18h x 12w x 6d inches
TODD MERRILL STUDIO Todd Merrill Studio represents an international group of established and emerging artists, each with a singular artistic vision and unprecedented point of view. In creating unique works of collectible design, each artist takes a hands-on approach that intersects contemporary design, fine art, traditional craft techniques, and pioneering innovation. Individually, through meticulous craftsmanship and rigorous studio experimentation, each has developed leading-edge, proprietary methods that break previously set inherent limitations of conventional materials like wood, metal, plaster, concrete, ceramics, glass, and resin. Their intimate studio approach fosters an atmosphere of creativity where the work rendered significantly bears the hand of the artist. Collectively the artists are helping to create a new visual vocabulary that advances long-held, established artistic boundaries. Their dynamic, one-of-a-kind, and frequently groundbreaking works contribute to today’s increasingly relevant gray space between art and design. With the gallery’s support, the artists’ works have entered the collections of major private and public patrons and prestigious museums including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Museum of
Art and Design in New York; the High Museum in Atlanta; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In 2000, Todd Merrill opened Todd Merrill Antiques which quickly became renowned for its glamorous and eclectic mix of twentieth-century furniture and lighting. The pioneering gallery was one of the of the first to promote modernist and postmodernist American studio artisans including Paul Evans, Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima, Karl Springer, James Mont, Tommi Parzinger, among others. In 2008, Rizzoli published Merrill’s “Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam”, the first ever authoritative examination of the great studio furniture makers and designers who, from 1940 thru the 1990s defined American high style. To celebrate the tenth anniversary, in 2018 Rizzoli published an expanded edition, adding 60 pages to his original book. This survey of the period continues with two massive additional chapters focused on Women Makers and Showrooms. After the publication of Modern Americana in 2008, Merrill began to shift the focus of the gallery and started the Studio Contemporary program which has today become his primary focus.