• Harris-Children-at-Okains.jpg

    Jeffrey Harris Three Children at Okains Bay, 1975. Private Collection.

  • Harris-From-Dream.jpg

    Jeffrey Harris From Dream 2939, 2002. Image courtesy of of the artist.

  • Harris-lovers-of-today.jpg

    Jeffrey Harris Lovers of Today, 1981.Image courtesy of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

  • Self-Portrait.jpg

    Jeffrey Harris Head with Cross (Self-portrait) 1998-2003. Image courtesy of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Jeffrey Harris

13 November 2005 - 6 February 2006 in the Entire Gallery

Jeffrey Harris holds faith in painting as "a condensation of experience and intensity." Jeffrey Harris the exhibition is a testament to a lifelong journey – an autobiography in paint – by an outstanding New Zealand painter.

The exhibition highlights major themes and key moments from Harris’s three decades of art-making, ranging from razor-sharp etchings to jewel-like ‘icons’, from sumptuous triptychs to a group of unflinching recent self-portraits. 

Jeffrey Harris was born in Akaroa in 1949. A ‘self-taught’ artist, he was encouraged to move to Dunedin in 1969 by Michael Smither and Ralph Hotere. He has painted full-time since 1970. Harris is perhaps best known in New Zealand for his intensely detailed and seemingly angst-ridden works of the 1980s, which were extensively discussed and widely exhibited in this period. In the late 1980s Harris moved to Australia, a shift that coincided with a major change in his artistic style. In 2000 Harris returned to New Zealand. Since his return Harris has exhibited regularly, and in 2003 he won renewed national attention when awarded the 2003 Wallace Art Award.

Jeffrey Harris is curated by Justin Paton, Curator of Contemporary Art at Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Recent shows curated by Paton include Ronnie van Hout : I’ve Abandoned Me, seen at City Gallery Wellington in 2004; Paton’s monograph on Australian artist Ricky Swallow, Field Recordings, was published earlier this year.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery touring exhibition

Public Programmes

Theater performance: And What Remains
Written and directed by Hone Kouka

Gordon H. Brown Art History Lecture: Annie Goldson - Memory, Landscape, Dad and Me.
Presented by Annie Goldson, introduction by Roger Blackley.

Principal Sponsor