Sacramento-based artist
Joha Harrison rarely tells anyone this, but there’s a
topographical inspiration behind his abstract work. “In my mind,
a lot of times I’m making a bird’s-eye view of an island,” he
says, adding that the Louisiana Gulf Coast where he grew up
“looks like an island. It has land, but also holes in the land
where water is, as if inside an island or a little
peninsula.”
“When I was younger, I used to
draw the map of the state of Louisiana over and over in class,”
he says. “I got so good at it that I could draw it and know all
the ins and outs.”
Harrison uses several mediums to
translate his memories and experience into art. After drawing and
painting throughout his youth, he started his career as a
photographer with a stack of disposable cameras, documenting the
places, people and things he feared losing. As he grew into his
practice, he professionalized his passion for photography and
ventured into filmmaking. He also continues to paint and has
works in private collections across the Sacramento region.
In this Q&A, the
multi-hyphenate artist traces how photography taught him to use
light, how the pandemic shutdowns accelerated his career as a
painter and why the heart of the artist sits in conflict with the
reality of needing to pay the bills. He also reflects on making
work that is explicitly about Black identity alongside work that
is more topographical and abstract.
What’s your artist origin
story?
I’m originally from Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. I moved to California in 2009.
My artist origin story starts in
elementary school. I remember doing more artwork than schoolwork.
Maybe that’s just the part I remember most, but I started in
elementary school. We had schoolwide competitions, and I won
several. After elementary school, I spent a lot of time doing
sports. While I was focused on sports, I wasn’t really thinking
about art.
Joha Harrison’s abstract work is often inspired by topography.
I picked
up photography in high school because my family was moving to
Georgia from Louisiana, and I didn’t want to go. I argued with my
parents at every step. I said, “I’m not leaving. I’m going to
stay with my auntie. I’m going to stay with my football coach.
I’m going to stay with anybody other than leave Louisiana.” But I
went, and I consider it one of the best decisions of my
life.
I started getting disposable
cameras from local grocery stores because I wanted to take photos
of everything I was about to leave — my life and everything. I
had about 20 disposable cameras, and for three months I took
photos of my friends and all the things I wanted to remember.
That’s how I got started in photography.
After I graduated high school, I
went to college and did photography for a church organization.
That’s when I got my first camera. I went to Best Buy, bought it,
and from there I started taking pictures of everything. Painting
came later.
How did the shutdown affect your
art?
Before that, I was mainly doing
photography and film work. I painted, too, but it was more of a
hobby. I made small pieces here and there. I started painting
full time in 2019, around the time of the pandemic. When the
world shut down, I said, “If everybody’s going to be stuck in a
house, they want pretty things on their wall to look at.” That’s
when I pivoted to doing art full time.
What does your film practice look
like?
My film practice is a mix between
documentary and experimentation. I like to tell stories that are
interesting and maybe uncommon, and treat the images that you see
like a painting that allows for experimentation within the frame.
On the other side of film, I enjoy making montage videos that are
abstract in form, made up of found videos and images similar to
my abstract collages.
You play a lot with light in your
images. How does that influence your work?
I’m at a point where I want to do
my own photo shoots and create my own images to incorporate into
my work. That takes longer than waking up and starting a
painting.
I could use my own photographs,
and I have used many of them before. Now I want to start creating
new images. It’s fun finding images on the internet that speak to
me, and they can come through in the work. But creating my own
images has a bigger impact. Everything you see comes from
me.
In photography, light is the main
thing. Without light, there is no image. How I manipulate light
is how I approach a photograph. Sometimes, at night, I’ll
manipulate the light so the scene is dark and all you see are the
lights. It depends on what I want to show. Some images need light
to say what I’m trying to say, and some don’t need as much.
However dim or dark it is, it creates a different mood and
conveys a different message.
With painting, light doesn’t play
as much of a role. It should, but it isn’t as active a factor as
it is in photography. It’s not something I think about unless I’m
trying to. In abstract work, placing light areas next to dark
areas so they interact is part of it.
A photograph from Joha Harrison’s “Between Blinks” series.
Light in photography is
instrumental and direct. Light in painting is instrumental, but
less direct.
With your more abstract works,
what are you trying to say when it’s not so obvious?
I’m drawn to abstract work
because I can make something that means 10,000 different things
to 10,000 different people. I’m not necessarily trying to deliver
one message. I’m creating in a way that can reach a lot of
people.
“Black Light” by Joha Harrison.
If I
made a portrait of a famous person, people who haven’t seen that
person or don’t know who they are might not feel much impact.
With abstract work, there are fewer boundaries. In pure
abstraction, the work can’t declare, “This is a Black person,
this is a white person, this is a rich person, this is a poor
person.” Anyone, from any background, can look at it. It’s almost
like something you’d see in nature — something that’s simply
there.
I’m trying to get what’s inside
of me out. I do make Black art, too, and I want to speak directly
to that. Growing up in the South and experiencing racism at very
young ages shapes my work. My parents and grandparents grew up in
that era. I grew up in an era where it’s more like residue
racism, you can’t really see it as much as you used to, and it’s
not as bold as it used to be. But those experiences shape my work
and the things I want to tell, and the direction that I want to
say something. It influences it on that aspect.
I also make abstract art, and
that can speak to that and to everyone. … A lot of the work is
subconsciously topographical. I like land masses and land forms,
and also what it looks like on the map. Specifically, the
deterioration and the erosion of the land from the water. It
makes the landscape look less than perfect, and I like work that
looks less than perfect.
If I feel like making something
highly political or something centered on Black identity, that’s
what I make. If I feel like making something purely abstract,
that’s what I make.
Sometimes I mix them
together.
You recently were in New York —
were you working there, and what was that experience like?
I was doing corporate
photography. Around the same time, I was in Illinois for a
residency about two weeks earlier.
I started looking up
things to do in New York because I had never been there. I
planned to do the work, visit a few galleries and fly home. Then
I saw that Kennedy Yanko had an opening while I was in town. I
also saw the Armory Show, which I had only heard about briefly
before that.
My flight was scheduled to leave
that day, and I didn’t think I would have time. But I went to a
gallery through a connection with local Sacramento artist
Unity Lewis while I was networking in New York, and the
staff gave me a VIP pass to the Armory Show. So I went.
It felt rushed. I didn’t realize
it would take about an hour to get to John F. Kennedy Airport. I
think The Armory Show opened at 9 or 10 a.m., and my flight was
at 3 p.m.
I met an artist named Clarence
Heyward who was showing with Richard Beavers Gallery. We talked,
and I looked at his work. He told me about another fair, Works on
Paper, and suggested that I check it out.
It was in a building by the
river, near the Lower East Side. He told me to talk to Tanya
Weddemire, a gallery owner from Brooklyn. I did, and I told her
about my struggles in the art world and trying to figure out how
to navigate it. She said I needed to understand what I wanted to
do and make a decision.
I told her that I make abstract
art and I make political/Black art. What I took from what she
said was that I should make the work that comes from my
heart.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
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