Chris Harrison (photographer) explained

Chris Harrison
Birth Name:Christopher Matthew Harrison
Birth Date:1 July 1967
Birth Place:Jarrow, UK
Nationality:English
Field:Photography
Training:Trent Polytechnic, The Royal College of Art

Chris Harrison (Christopher Matthew Harrison,[1] [2] born 1967 in Jarrow)[3] [4] is an English photographer known for his work which has explored ideas of home, histories and class.[5]

Early life

Harrison grew up in Jarrow, England and attended Valley View Junior School.[6] He left school at 15 when he became an apprentice fitter at Swan Hunter shipyard.In 1985, he took up photography and in June 1990, Harrison graduated alongside Simon Starling and Nick Waplington with an honours degree in photographic studies from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham.It was also at this time that Harrison served in The Light Infantry (7th Durham Battalion) and qualified as a sniper.[7] [8] [9] [10]

Works

Whatever Happened to Audra Patterson?

In 1991, Harrison was awarded a Northern Arts Production Award to make the work "Whatever Happened to Audra Patterson?"[11] [12] [13] [14] Taking as his starting point his own Valley View Junior school class photo from 1978, Harrison located all but one of his former classmates and photographed them. Audra Patterson, who had hidden behind another pupil in the class photo was never found, thus giving rise to the title. Consisting of twenty-nine large scale colour portraits, the work has "the formal appearance of portraiture but the conceptual stance of documentary", and has been described as countering the tradition of grainy black and white romanticism of the working class. This work has been seen as "using documentary photography as a tool of history" and in which "there is certainly an implicit political critique…one which operates to disperse the accumulated romantic baggage which surrounds North-Eastern photography." The work was shown at the Zone Photographic Gallery Newcastle in 1992[15] and featured in the Independent Magazine.

Under the Hood.

In the spring of 1993, after Simon Grennan (Kartoon Kings) had seen "Whatever happened to Audra Patterson?" in the Independent magazine, Harrison was commissioned by the Viewpoint Gallery, Salford to make the work "Under the Hood".[16] Working closely with a group of young men on the Pendleton Estate in Salford, Harrison used the conventions of Renaissance portraiture to show a different side of young men who were seen as dangerous and marginal. The autobiographical nature of Harrison's work is apparent. When talking about the young men he photographed Harrison stated "The only thing that separates me from them is luck…I photograph to find out about myself, to find out where I'm coming from"[17]

Described by Val Williams as "one of the few photo series to emerge from the new British colour documentary which neither satirised nor objectified a group in society, which saw itself as marginalised, bound into, and emerging from, a culture of poverty and lack of opportunity." "Under the Hood" was later shown at the 1998 Rencontres d'Arles photography festival, Arles, France. As part of the group show "Les Anglais vus par les Anglais" (trans. How the English see the English).

Noblesse Oblige.

In 1995, Photoworks commissioned Harrison to undertake the first in a series of Country Life commissions in the English town of Petworth. The resulting work, Noblesse Oblige[18] was put on permanent display in Leconfield Hall.

Sites of Memory

In 1995, Harrison began his long-term project, "Sites of Memory"[19] consisting of panoramic colour photographs of World War I memorials. The images serve to interrogate the place of memory in the contemporary landscape,[20] By using a large format panoramic camera and a slow shutter speed Harrison shows the viewer the memorials in isolation as opposed to how we normally see them, i.e. in passing. This emphasises the act of looking and "the result is to give objects we hardly ever examine an ironic splendour." "Sites of Memory" has continued to be exhibited extensively most notably, the Imperial War Museum, London, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.[21] [22] and in 2007 "Sites of Memory" was exhibited at the Tate Britain, London as part of an extensive survey of British Photography curated by Val Williams and Susan Bright, "How we are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present".[23]

In 1997, Harrison was awarded a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art and studied alongside Clare Strand, Anne Hardy, Bettina von Zwehl, Sophy Rickett, Gareth McConnell and Alison Jackson

In 2001, Harrison moved to Oslo, Norway with his family and is a lecturer at .[24] [25]

I Belong Jarrow

In 2012, Harrison published his first monograph,"I Belong Jarrow"[26] about his hometown, Jarrow, England. In this, Harrison considers an understanding of the north and its place in photographic culture through memory and personal history. "I Belong Jarrow" consists of large format urban landscapes mixed with "an anarchic mixture of jokes, observations, and personal histories, he takes us to the heart of his own Jarra, and leaves us there to make of it what we will." Photographs from the series "I belong Jarrow" have been exhibited in England and Europe, including the MACRO Testaccio, Rome.[27] and the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, Sunderland, England.[28]

Copper Horses

In 2012, Harrison was awarded the 16th Bradford Fellowship at the National Media Museum, Bradford, England. The Fellowship enabled mid-career photographers to develop their professional practice. Previous recipients included Paul Graham, David Hurn, Donovan Wylie and Sarah Jones.[29] [30] [31] [32] For the one year Fellowship Harrison photographed the boring machine his father had operated throughout his working life.[33] "The result is a complex visual metaphor for his thoughts and feelings about his relationship with his father and the many people who work hard to make ends meet in British industry".[34]

The work, titled "Copper Horses"[35] was exhibited at the National Media Museum in 2013. The title of the exhibition derives from the name given to a copper component for electrical substation produced by the workers in Jarrow.[36]

For the exhibition Copper Horses, Harrison produced a set of images which show some of his father's Tools and possessions (a set of Dominoes a Micrometer, a photograph of him when he was 16 and a champion swimmer) and the dismantled parts of the machine (Vertical and Horizontal boring machine) he operated, from the age of 15 years until retirement.

Publications

Photobooks by Harrison

Other publications

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Collections

Notes

  1. Frisinghelli. Christine. Forum. Camera Austria. 1993. 42. 66. Graz, Austria. German, English. 1015-1915.
  2. Book: Frayling. Christopher. The Show: Fine and Applied Art.. The Royal College of Art Show, 1999. 1999. Royal College of Art. London. 187-4175438. 30–31. 1st.
  3. Book: Bauret. Gabriel. Les Anglais vus par les Anglais. Un Nouveau Paysage Humain, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles.. 1998. Actes Sud. Arles. 2742717803. 120–127. 1st. French, English.
  4. Book: Harrison. Chris. Jerrome. Peter. Noblesse Oblige, The residents and interiors of the Somerset Hospital.. 1996. Photoworks. Maidstone. 0951742701. 14–31. 1st.
  5. Book: Harrison. Chris. I Belong Jarrow. 2012. Schilt. Amsterdam. 978-90-5330-780-9. 1st.
  6. Mitchison. Amanda. Anatomy of a Classroom. The Independent Magazine. 8 August 1992. 34–39. Independent Print Ltd.. London.
  7. Book: Dr. Catherine Moriarty.. Sites of memory: war memorials at the end of the 20th century.. 1997. The Imperial War Museum. London. 187-0423461.
  8. Kerr. Joe. War & Peace. Blueprint. November 1998. 155. 40–42. Aspen Publishing. London. 0268-4926.
  9. Val Williams. Val Williams. Salford Knights. The Guardian Weekend. 18 June 1994. 26–31. The Guardian News and Media. London.
  10. Mark Little. Whatever Happened to Audra Patterson?. Creative Camera. 1992. 318. 44–45. 0011-0876.
  11. The series is reproduced here within Harrison's site.
  12. Book: Harrison. Chris. Williams. Val. Under the Hood. 1994. Viewpoint Gallery. Salford. 090-1952311. 1st.
  13. Jack Lithgow. Whatever Happened to Audra Patterson?. Iron Magazine. 1992. 67. 38–41. Iron Press. Newcastle. 0140-7597.
  14. Book: Stefano Benni. Fanny & Darko, Il mestiere di crescere.. 1997. Edizione Gabriele Mazzotta. Milan. 8820212234. 117–126. 1st. Italian, English.
  15. Book: Bright. Susan. Williams. Val. How We Are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present.. 2007. Tate Publishing. London. 9781854377142. 6, 173, 214. 1st.
  16. The series is reproduced here within Harrison's site.
  17. Val Williams. Stories of the Self. Art Press. November 1994. 196. 34–39. Paris. French, English. 0245-5676.
  18. The series is reproduced here within Harrison's site.
  19. The series is reproduced here within Harrison's site.
  20. Book: Rainer Rother. Der Weltkrieg 1914–1918 Ereignis und Erinnerung. 2004. Deutsches Historisches Museum. Berlin. 3861021293. 350–353. 1st. German.
  21. David Brett. War Memorials. Source, Ireland's Photographic Review. Winter 1999. 21. 44–49. Photo Works North.
  22. Book: Peter Neill. For Evermore: Fading Evidence of the Great War. 2000. Gallery of Photography. Dublin. 0952674173. 9–10 28–31. 1st.
  23. Billy Bragg. Billy Bragg. The view from here. The Observer. 29 April 2007. Guardian Media Group Ltd..
  24. Web site: Faculty Profiles: Chris Harrison. Bilder Nordic School of Photography. 9 April 2015. Oslo, Norway. Norwegian.
  25. Web site: Interview with Chris Harrison.. Beyond words. 12 April 2015.
  26. The series is reproduced within Harrison's site.
  27. Book: Marc Prüst. Motherland, Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma. X Edizione. 2011. Quodlibet. Rome. 9788874624102. 67–69. 1st. Italian.
  28. Web site: Chris Harrison. I Belong Jarrow. The Social: Encountering Photography. North East Photography Network. 8 April 2015.
  29. Web site: Copper Horses by Chris Harrison. National Science and Media Museum.. 1 May 2020.
  30. Ruddle. Patricia Ann. I Belong Jarrow. The Royal Photographic Society Journal. Spring 2014. 5–10. London. 0959-6704.
  31. Rhodes. Helen. I Belong Jarrow. Image. February 2013. 422. 35–39. London. 1361-2050.
  32. Web site: I Belong Jarrow. Verve Photo: The New Breed of Documentary Photographers.. 12 April 2015. 4 March 2013.
  33. Web site: Introducing Copper Horses by Chris Harrison. 1 May 2020. 2 November 2013.
  34. Web site: Liddy. Brian. Hidden in plain sight: Backdrops and drapery in photography. National Science and Media Museum blog. National Science and Media Museum. 1 May 2020.
  35. The series is reproduced here within Harrison's site.
  36. Web site: Copper Horses. Professional Photographer. Archant Specialist Limited. 12 April 2015. Norwich. 30 August 2013.
  37. Web site: Chris Harrison, I Belong Jarrow.. LensCulture. 12 April 2015.
  38. Web site: Wolverhampton Arts & Culture . Wolverhampton Art Gallery . 14 January 2019.
  39. Web site: Face Value – Contemporary British Photo Portraits. British Council Collection. 18 April 2015.
  40. Web site: You Are The Company in Which You Keep. The Social: Encountering Photography.. 18 April 2015.
  41. Book: Bevan. Sara. Art from Contemporary Conflict. 2015. The Imperial War Museum. London. 978-1-904897-743. 20. 1st. April 1, 2015.
  42. Web site: The Collections. The Victoria & Albert Museum. 13 February 2018.
  43. Web site: The Bradford Fellowship. The National Media Museum. 12 April 2015.
  44. Web site: The Imperial War Museum, Collections. The Imperial War Museum.. 12 April 2015.
  45. Web site: British Council Visual Art Collection. The British Council. 12 April 2015.

References

Web site: The Victoria and Albert Museum. The Collections. 13 February 2018.

External links

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