Hilary Harkness

Mary Boone Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

New York, Mary Boone Gallery, Hilary Harkness, 2008

New York, The FLAG Art Foundation, Hilary Harkness, 2013

“It's more about sex and power, not violence. These two things have a simultaneously immediate yet hidden appeal. They draw you in. My paintings are about these, but also much more. I use them to pull the viewer in; from there, I explore the issues in more detail, sometimes in twists-and-turns and sometimes to the point of their own banality. I also think the manner in which I paint them is important: slow, small, detailed. This allows me to investigate these issues of sex and power in a more detailed, articulated, and maybe thoughtful manner. I hope to infuse these issues with meanings deeper and more idiosyncratic than typically found in the culture at large. I cannot separate how I paint from what I paint, the paintings are not just about one or the other, and hopefully the how and what contrast and combine in a way that creates something interesting, charged.” Hilary Harkness (Hilary Harkness, quoted in Laura Smith, “Interview with New York Painter Hilary Harkness,” F News Magazine, November 2004, p. 15)

Using Old Master techniques through contemporary lenses, Hilary Harkness explores themes of pleasure and power, sex and perversity, queerness, tenderness, domesticity, contained viewpoints and revisionist histories. Pomeranian Line is a prime example of Harkness’s ability to merge her meticulously detailed artistic method and exceptional imagination to create an enigmatic narrative painting. The supercharged world she creates in this piece is filled with different stories and cartoonish characters which all come together in a supernatural and otherworldly setting. 

The work exists outside of time and space, requiring viewers to question their surroundings. Its composition nevertheless guides one's eye around the scene, toward multiple points of tension, boredom and bliss, all clamoring for attention with fire-alarm urgency. “I would like to create a tableau,” Harkness smiles, “where people are seduced into suspending disbelief for that moment of looking.”