Film still from Versia Harris, They Say You Can Dream A Thing More Than Once, 2013, Illustration, drawing, animation, duration: 11 mins 47 secs, Edition of 10.
Please contact gallery for more information.
Versia Harris, They Say You Can Dream A Thing More Than Once, 2013, animation, illustration and drawing, 11:45, edition of 10.
Versia Harris, For Peace, Installation, 2018, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, USA.
The following works are centered around ideas of power and influence and seductiveness. They take words and speech that is meant to persuade or invite to address issues around political ideology, wishful thinking, fantasy creation and society as a malleable entity. In this work, Harris continues to examine notions of hierarchy, idealism, personal narrative. Inspired by dioramas and immersive spaces, Harris utilizes installation and video to work through how power flows back and forth and between politicians and society, art work and viewer, personal history and broader narratives. Her work offers new ways of thinking about fantasy and symbolic representation as a way of navigating and understanding the world.
Versia Harris uses fantasy and world building to metaphorically address the human condition and explore various theories about identity, land, power, political control, acts and ideas of power and media influence. What are our collective fantasies about ourselves, our nations and our world? How are they linked to conflict, struggle and acts of aggression but also beauty, story and triumph.
Barbadian artist Versia Harris received her BFA in Studio Art in 2012. She has done a number of residences in the Caribbean and North and South America and has shown in London, China, Nigeria, Moscow, Michigan and Aruba. She was awarded a Fulbright Laspau Scholarship in 2017 and received her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan USA in May, 2019, where she also earned a Mercedes-Benz Financial Services New Beginnings Award. Harris’ film They Say You Can Dream A Thing More Than Once presented as part of re.riddle’s exhibition for Ars Electronica (2020), is in the permanent collection of National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow.
Please contact the gallery for more information about Versia Harris’ work.