Helen S. Smith Gallery to open new exhibition, host artist talk
By Philip Denman, September 4, 2018
The Helen S. Smith Gallery at Green River College will open Aisha Harrison's latest exhibition "How it's Held" Sept. 24 in the Holman Library. The exhibition runs through Nov. 8 and will feature a closing reception and artist talk from noon to 1 p.m. on Nov. 8.
The exhibition consists of ceramic objects, wood/linoleum panels and collages.
Harrison has roots in Olympia, WA going back four generations. She studied abroad in Spain during high school, prompting her to be a Spanish major as an undergraduate.
She loved studying Latin American literature because of the ways in which the Indigenous people used Spanish stories and images, subverting them and intertwining them with their own to ensure that Indigenous peoples, images and stories survived. These camouflaged acts of resistance reminded her of ways that she navigates being of African American and European American mixed heritage in predominantly European American spaces.
Her work today, as both an artist and arts educator, attempts to navigate the spaces between, centering through making things with your hands, to create personal symbolic imagery, and to encourage others to subvert dominant narratives by telling their stories in hidden and/or overt ways.
Through |wood, ink | 2017 | 12"x18"
Privilege | paper, ink | 2017 | 6"x8"
Through II | ceramic, embroidery floss, graphite | 2018 | 15"x18"x10"
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