Dark matter of the mind

By ADAM GIFFORD

Michael Harrison's paintings are deceptively simple. Shapes of animals or people, or animals and people, done in thin washes of acrylic paint on A4 sheets of watercolour paper.

Two cats butt heads. A cat silhouette looks out, a heart where its mouth would be. Birds fly above outstretched arms.

Look at them for a while and you might get a sensation from quiet calm to unease, tension, sadness, fear. They seem like drawings prepared for discussion during a session of psychoanalysis, a Viennese parlour game at 19 Berggasse.

"What I am trying to convey is psychic states, the scariest mental states, the things that go on in your head. I like the idea painting can express some of that," says Harrison.

That puts the Auckland painter squarely in the distorted frame of surrealism, the art movement which emerged about the same time as the theories of Freud and Jung were embedding themselves into the modern consciousness.

"I love surrealism. I think my original interest in art came from appreciating surrealist stuff."

His favourites are Rene Magritte, the Belgian creator of mysterious metaphors, and Max Ernst, whose collages never cease to unsettle. "I think Ernst would have been more fun to meet."

His interest took him from Papakura to art school "to meet other people interested in art. Rosehill College, Papakura, that was no good for art at all. You couldn't do practical art past the fifth form, so when I left there I started a BA and did bursary art at what is now AUT so I could get into Elam."

Harrison has been exhibiting since 1988, and working full-time at it since 1998.

His work has always attracted the attention of other artists - they, along with dealers and gallery staff, have been consistent buyers, although wider recognition has taken longer.

"That is probably why I kept going before I made a living at it, because enough other artists were interested so I figured I was on to something," Harrison says. "You have to know you are on to something yourself, but you do need other people to tell you are not deluded, you have not chosen the wrong occupation."

Now in his early 40s, Harrison has avoided the conceptual gimmickry of many of the next generation of artists.

"I think it is important to do art that is rounded. There is always a risk if you do art about art, it becomes bloodless, the life sort of seeps out of it," he says.

He has stuck at painting despite its unfashionable status for most of the preceding two decades, choosing to work with a limited range of materials.

"A concern of mine is how do you do work that arrived of its own accord. The unforced thing is important. Not having a theory before you do something, that is very important.

"I don't like theorising art, so I set limits. It is like a chess board. That is not to say I will always use that format. You have to learn new moves, new sequences."

While he works Harrison plays music, mostly 60s and 70s rock, a useful device to keep the conscious part of his mind occupied while he plumbs the unconscious.

"I always felt I wanted art to behave a bit like music does, there should be an emotional aspect to it.

"I try to do work about the way the human mind works and there is a sort of natural reward for doing that, because (a) you find out stuff about yourself, and (b) other people can say things about the work that did not occur to you.

"The cat thing is funny because by my doing the work, my mother recently realised she used to let the cat sleep next to me when I was a baby. I must have got on with the cat."

Painting is "like panning for gold, you have to go through a lot of river sand to get to the little bits of gold".

"You are looking to surprise yourself, and if you can surprise yourself you know you are on to something. Conceptual art seems too over-planned. That's why communism failed."

As well as showing in Auckland and Wellington, Harrison is represented in Sydney by the Darren Knight Gallery.

He was also one of 51 artists chosen by Portuguese curator Isabel Carlos for the Sydney Biennale, which this year had the theme On Reason and Emotion.

"I realised showing in Australia the emphasis there is more on the figurative. New Zealand is more uptight. That's why we need the rock 'n' roll."

Dealer Ivan Anthony says Harrison has been out of fashion for so long he is coming into fashion.

"His is some of the most sophisticated work being done here."

He says few people can match the quality of Harrison's drawing, despite or perhaps because of its simplicity.

"The work polarises people. A lot of people don't get it, and it takes some people a couple of years. It is sort of forbidden knowledge."

Harrison has his own view of forbidden knowledge. "I like the idea the universe is mostly dark matter, all this stuff between the stars, they don't know what it is."

* Ivan Anthony Gallery, 312 K' Rd, to Sep 25