Tide Is High

Michael Harnish’s new body of work is comprised of images that reflect life in a Los Angeles landscape. Tattered abstract notions of collage elements align with natural California beauty. Harnish calls this new series California Romanticism. Mysterious shapes take form and allow the viewer to drift back and forth between abstract elements and highly defined images. Globs of paint are placed upon seemingly highly rendered painting elements. Nothing takes center stage in the pictures. Everything in them plays off of one another and creates unexpected levels of visual representation.

The pictures are “really designed to mimic Los Angeles culture where high and low materials are constantly operating within the same space,” said Harnish. For example, a picture postcard of a Santa Monica sunset can be seen just beyond the graffitied trash dumpster.

The pictures are reminiscent of Eduard Vuillard, who used color and objects in a new way to create dream-like images. Harnish places bold fluorescent colors alongside seemingly traditional settings. The paint marks fracture from clarity and drift into obscurity, taking their cues from impressionist paintings of the past.