OPEN MONDAY 5TH JUNE – 3RD JULY 2017
David Harrison’s paintings, drawings and sculptures draw on a rich vocabulary of myth, history and symbol to present an acutely observed, emphatically contemporary world where the natural and supernatural go hand in hand.
For his forthcoming solo exhibition at Churchgate Gallery, the artist will show wall-based works alongside previously unseen sculptures. Shaped from cheap, prosaic and recycled materials such as cardboard off-cuts, Harrison’s sculptures present us with representatives of the animal kingdom, such as a flock of birds, along with symbolic figures from the past, from myth, or from fiction. Embodying our throw-away society and its effects upon our wider environment, these sculptures make explicit the paramount importance of nature to the artist. His dexterity with such materials, meanwhile, allows each object, despite its humble origins, to possess an alarming, talismanic potency, and an iconic simplicity.
This exhibition is also an opportunity to purchase a unique, limited edition perfume by David Harrison, which has been a year in the making, made from plant extracts sourced from the artists garden.
Celebrating natural magic and the power of its essence, it invokes field and woodland sprites with its seductive top notes of rose and bewitching vervain. This takes us to its heart of spicy cardamon, petitgrain and the sweetness of violet and orris root. Leading us to its base, we are met with the woodland scent of dreamy Artimisia and wormwood, otherworldly elemi, earthy patchouli and the animal scent of civet.