Event Horizon: living on the edge
Event Horizon: living on the edge is both memorial and social commentary on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred in 2010.
By investigating the relationships between environment, consumerism, and energy production, Harris has created a physical representation of her deep personal concern for the current state of the world. This tangible object attempts to bridge the gap of conceptual ideas into concrete reality through the scale, texture and color of multiple ceramic forms. This installation work serves as a beautiful reminder of an issue with complex social, global, and economic implications; a constructed environment that allows the viewer to contemplate and question their own personal landscape of issues. This work is intended for continued installation within new locations and is reconfigured to accommodate each new space.
BLACK HOLE: a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star.
EVENT HORIZON: the surface of a black hole : the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing can escape from within it.
In this place, time and space appear to be unending, just as we view our energy production and consumption, but there is a very finite end and matter eventually does get sucked into oblivion and our resources will eventually run out!
By investigating the relationships between environment, consumerism, and energy production, Harris has created a physical representation of her deep personal concern for the current state of the world. This tangible object attempts to bridge the gap of conceptual ideas into concrete reality through the scale, texture and color of multiple ceramic forms. This installation work serves as a beautiful reminder of an issue with complex social, global, and economic implications; a constructed environment that allows the viewer to contemplate and question their own personal landscape of issues. This work is intended for continued installation within new locations and is reconfigured to accommodate each new space.
BLACK HOLE: a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star.
EVENT HORIZON: the surface of a black hole : the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing can escape from within it.
In this place, time and space appear to be unending, just as we view our energy production and consumption, but there is a very finite end and matter eventually does get sucked into oblivion and our resources will eventually run out!
Event Horizon: living on the edge ZGF Gallery, Portland, OR 2012 - 2013
1,200 ceramic forms Installed in the ZGF Gallery, Portland, OR. 2012-13
Photo: Matthew Miller
Each ceramic form hand thrown on a wheel and are coated with custom formulations of black glaze. All forms are made, glazed, and signed by Liz Harris.
Event Horizon: tar ball one
Pacific Northwest College of Art Benefit Art Auction 2013 will feature an extension the original 2,400 piece installation Event Horizon: living on the edge, donated by the artist. This extension installation is comprised of 103 new hand-made ceramic forms ~ Event Horizon: tar ball one, installed by Liz Harris at the location chosen by the winning bidder.
Event Horizon: tar ball one 103 hand thrown ceramic forms
Photo: Dan Kvitka
Event Horizon: living on the edge Linfield Gallery, McMinnville, OR 2012
2,400 ceramic forms Installed in the Linfield Gallery, McMinnvlle, OR. 2012
Photo: Emily Dillon
Each ceramic form hand thrown on a wheel and are coated with custom formulations of black glaze. All forms are made, glazed, and signed by Liz Harris.
Event Horizon: living on the edge PNCA B.F.A. Gallery, Portland, OR 2012
2,066 ceramic forms Installed in the B.F.A. Gallery,
Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR. 2012
Photo: Matthew Miller
Each ceramic form hand thrown on a wheel and are coated with custom formulations of black glaze. All forms are made, glazed, and signed by Liz Harris.
consumed 2011
Two-channel video installation images of objects made with constant upgrades and dumped into land fills, oil rigs pumping black dollars up to the surface, projected into a giant ceramic ribcage consuming everything around us.
Installation in group show That's Deep at Place Gallery, Pioneer Place Mall, Portland, OR 2011
pause
I am interested in the word pause as it relates to how I am feeling at the moment, in the context of; I feel that a pause in my life is either happening right now, or I am on the verge of a very long pause right before the storm breaks the silence.
A single channel animation projected onto a ceramic and steel structure. All ceramic forms were individually hand thrown on a wheel and glazed with a hand-made custom glaze. I animated the sculptures shadow using original hand drawings of the sculpture, and then projected those animated drawings to emulate a shadow in motion on top of the static sculpture. By using different jerky animated movements I was intending to accentuate the "pause" of the environment and of the viewers experience. The custom audio is comprised of multiple layers of wind sounds, which hopefully gave the animated motion a sense of reality or for a moment suspending reality.
pause
* a temporary stop
* a : a break in a verse b : a brief suspension of the voice to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts
* temporary inaction especially as caused by uncertainty
* a reason or cause for pausing (as to reconsider) "a thought that should give one pause"
The Urban dictionary lists one of the definitions of pause: "Said after something that may be taken as homosexual."
A single channel animation projected onto a ceramic and steel structure. All ceramic forms were individually hand thrown on a wheel and glazed with a hand-made custom glaze. I animated the sculptures shadow using original hand drawings of the sculpture, and then projected those animated drawings to emulate a shadow in motion on top of the static sculpture. By using different jerky animated movements I was intending to accentuate the "pause" of the environment and of the viewers experience. The custom audio is comprised of multiple layers of wind sounds, which hopefully gave the animated motion a sense of reality or for a moment suspending reality.
pause
* a temporary stop
* a : a break in a verse b : a brief suspension of the voice to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts
* temporary inaction especially as caused by uncertainty
* a reason or cause for pausing (as to reconsider) "a thought that should give one pause"
The Urban dictionary lists one of the definitions of pause: "Said after something that may be taken as homosexual."
pause RefugePDX, Portland, OR 2011
Ceramic & steel sculpture installed at RefugePDX, Portland OR 2011
Photo: Emily Dillon
Each ceramic form hand thrown on a wheel and are coated with custom formulations of glaze. All forms are made, glazed, and signed by Liz Harris.
pause PNCA Manuel Izquierdo Gallery, Portland, OR 2010
Ceramic & steel sculpture installed at the PNCA Manuel Izquierdo Gallery, Portland OR 2011
Photo: Liz Harris
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Documentation of my Video Installation, a single channel
projection onto a ceramic and steel structure (all ceramic forms were individually hand thrown on a wheel). I animated the sculptures shadow with hand drawings and then projected the animated motion on top of the static sculpture, using different jerky movements to accentuate the "pause". |
from the depths
A four channel video image, projected onto a ceramic and steel sculpture originally for a site-specific collaborative installation. All ceramic forms were individually hand-thrown on a pottery wheel; I hand-made the actual porcelain and glazes used, in order to achieve a translucent quality with the clay, to better interact with the video projection of water. The audio was made so that the viewer felt as if they were underwater within the installation, really allowing the feeling of being submersed, in a sense looking up at the structure “from the depths”.
from the depths RefugePDX, Portland, OR 2011
Daylight view of ceramic and steel sculpture installed at RefugePDX, Portland, OR. 2011
Photo: Emily Dillon
Each porcelain form hand thrown on a wheel and are coated with custom formulations of glaze. All forms made, glazed, and signed by Liz Harris.
documentation of "from the depths" multichannel video installation
art: @42, from the depths 2010
A video Documentary of my actual work process while constructing the site-specific sculpture used for the multi-channel installation “From the Depths”, which was a part of the "collapse/reflection" group show at PNCA on April 1st, 2010. The video was playing on a portable CD player with head phones, mounted just outside of the installation, which served as my artist statement for the piece. *The video was filmed in the style of art: 21, the PBS video series highlighting artists and “Art in the Twenty-First Century”.
how the hell did i get here 2009
“how the hell did I get here” is a installation utilizing a mix of my own video footage rotoscoped onto clear 35mm film, the 35mm film trailer of Sorority Row and the audio from the film trailer Pandorum, that I re-cut and edited to my animation. A two-channel hybrid animation projection onto a wood structure supporting an opaque glass window. This work was apart of the PNCA Final Cuts Intermedia group show in Indigo Building's Hybrid Gallery, Portland, OR 2009.
I am fascinated with movie trailers, especially those within the Horror genre. Movie trailers tell a story within a very short time span and use a very systematic, formula based construct, which distinguishes the type of movie it is; the editing uses specific types of sequences, very quick cuts, periods of rest with black frames and the pacing of audio, set the tone of the movie in a very short time frame.
I wanted to use this vernacular as a vehicle to explore my own past as a teenager, my first experiences of growing up and becoming a “lady”, entering college and coming into my own sexuality. I also seemed to have been following a specific formula on my way to adulthood; go to college, join a sorority, have a boyfriend, don’t have sex until you are married, graduate at the top of the class, get a “good” high paying career, get married (to a man), buy a house, stay at home and start making babies. Somewhere along the way I veered from that conditioned formula society and my family had been feeding me from birth. I wanted to try and scratch away at the layers that I have built up over the years to protect myself and possibly reveal my roots.
I am fascinated with movie trailers, especially those within the Horror genre. Movie trailers tell a story within a very short time span and use a very systematic, formula based construct, which distinguishes the type of movie it is; the editing uses specific types of sequences, very quick cuts, periods of rest with black frames and the pacing of audio, set the tone of the movie in a very short time frame.
I wanted to use this vernacular as a vehicle to explore my own past as a teenager, my first experiences of growing up and becoming a “lady”, entering college and coming into my own sexuality. I also seemed to have been following a specific formula on my way to adulthood; go to college, join a sorority, have a boyfriend, don’t have sex until you are married, graduate at the top of the class, get a “good” high paying career, get married (to a man), buy a house, stay at home and start making babies. Somewhere along the way I veered from that conditioned formula society and my family had been feeding me from birth. I wanted to try and scratch away at the layers that I have built up over the years to protect myself and possibly reveal my roots.
how the hell did i get here Hybrid Gallery, Portland, OR 2009
Detail: installation how the hell did i get here at Hybrid Gallery, Portland OR 2009
Photo: Liz Harris
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 Detail: 35mm film used for how the hell did i get here, in studio 2009
Photo: Liz Harris |
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vantage point resurrected 2009
Boundary Crossings: Little Gods group show, Hybrid Gallery, Portland, OR 2009
Baptized Roman Catholic I don't have a little god,
as I cannot relate to the word god itself as it strikes memories of fear, guilt, control and repression. Although, I am drawn to Catholic iconography and have called upon these images for inspiration and used them as a base for vantage point resurrected. Everyone has their own perspective on the world including different emotional and physical reactions to the same events in time. Most of these everyday events are very public, but a few cherished and maybe embarrassing experiences are private. My own life experiences, relations, relationships have revealed or concealed parts of myself intentionally and unintentionally. My process of working on this project dealt directly with literal concealing and revealing of images, scratching away and drawing directly onto 35mm film, creating ghost like figures which we could insert specific people and possibly even ourselves. Set in a confessional style installation allowing you to peer into the secret recesses all of us collectively share as individuals.
Baptized Roman Catholic I don't have a little god,
as I cannot relate to the word god itself as it strikes memories of fear, guilt, control and repression. Although, I am drawn to Catholic iconography and have called upon these images for inspiration and used them as a base for vantage point resurrected. Everyone has their own perspective on the world including different emotional and physical reactions to the same events in time. Most of these everyday events are very public, but a few cherished and maybe embarrassing experiences are private. My own life experiences, relations, relationships have revealed or concealed parts of myself intentionally and unintentionally. My process of working on this project dealt directly with literal concealing and revealing of images, scratching away and drawing directly onto 35mm film, creating ghost like figures which we could insert specific people and possibly even ourselves. Set in a confessional style installation allowing you to peer into the secret recesses all of us collectively share as individuals.
Media projected onto wooden cross inside of confessional booth, visitors peer in through dirty windows to view.
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