Hot-House Manicure
New works by Erin Harmon

March 27, 2015- April 26, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, March 27, 2015, 6–9pm

[Images]

Tiger Strikes Asteroid LA is pleased to announce Hot-house Manicure, an exhibition of works by Erin Harmon.

Hot-house.

1. (noun) A heated structure, typically made largely of glass, for rearing plants out of season or in a climate colder than is natural for them.

Manicure.

1. (noun) A cosmetic treatment of hands and fingernails, including trimming and polishing

2. (verb) To trim or cut meticulously.

In Hot-house Manicure, Erin Harmon uses landscape as a lure. But rather than depictions of wild and continuously evolving environments, Harmon’s paintings explore the alternate dimension of an objectified landscape where time is suspended. The results are taut, sealed spaces that hover between interior and exterior; tomb-like and thus ultimately removed from nature. Her use of pattern deftly confuses, leaving the viewer vacillating between an intimate sense of intricate space and an uneasy feeling of imbalance.  The push and pull of object/non-object creates a perceptual thrill.

The presence of the artist’s hand is inescapable in these works. Utilizing a process of mosaic-like collage to generate each work, Harmon paints, trims, prunes, and weaves together fetishized fragments into discrete spaces so as to appear whole. Using a palette teetering between day-glo, acidic and fetid color, she meticulously cultivates these minute and intricate worlds.  Harmon’s use of optical trickery results in imagery that can be both tensely jubilant and inviting as well as densely stunted and ambiguous. Something that is both part of nature as well as an expression of a formal aesthetic

While not a gardener in the traditional sense, Harmon cultivates seeds of interest with a variety of influences including her observed environment, bonsai trees and ikebana, classic Disney movies, 18th c. French decorative arts, 1970’s psychedelic black-light posters, couture fashion, and Victorian valentines.

Erin Harmon was raised in the suburbs of Southern California where the natural desert is sated by hundreds of miles of aqueducts to produce obsessively groomed lawns. After graduating from San Diego State University with a Bachelors degree in Studio Art in 2000, she received her MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design in 2003. Erin currently lives and works in the verdant and fecund Tennessee Delta, where kudzu and coal sludge can swallow everything in their path. Erin has exhibited her work nationally in both group and solo exhibitions including the Sarah Doyle Gallery, Providence, RI; Atlanta Artists Center & Gallery, GA; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; and The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN. Last fall, Erin was excited to debut her first theatrical set design for Ballet Memphis’ River Project: Moving Currents.