This from ArtNet about Harkness:
"Ms. Harkness, trained in the Midwest as a violinist, has beautiful long tapered fingers which resemble the tiny, joyless female vampires who torture each other in her virulently kitschy paintings."The product of the artist's labored fantasies about World War II sailors sunken and reincarnated as predatory lesbian zombies, these meticulously crafted mementos are vessels of suffocating lust, which collectors snap up like flies on a frog's tongue."
This from Harkness about Harkness:
"I think that many paintings, both historical and contemporary are really quite boring. I like painting, I enjoy the activity, and, as something I am going to spend most of my time doing, I figure I might as well try to make them interesting."
This from The Village Voice on Harkness' Air Raid:
"The 10-inch-square Air Raid depicts eight rooms of a gabled house populated by a bevy of supermodels. Do the servants hand-washing frills in the basement resent the brunette-on-blonde debauchery in the garden? Who are the women in the attic squatting over mirrors as they give birth? And why the retro trappings like nylons, garters, and clothes wringers, last seen during the Good War? Lacing nostalgia with decadence, Harkness commands her enigmatic art as succinctly as a ship in a bottle."
Whatever you think of her work, you have to admit that it is intriguing. Shocking maybe, but that is often a good thing. I find her figures as frightening as I do sexy. Her scenes are both apocalyptic, depraved, and somehow they remain sexually charged.
You can see Harkness' work at the Mary Boone Gallery in NYC.
Posted by Paul Hina at June 1, 2005 12:33 AM