Your browser (Internet Explorer 7 or lower) is out of date. It has known security flaws and may not display all features of this and other websites. Learn how to update your browser.
HarryArtGallery.com is an online platform that offers a diverse range of artistic works. The collection includes original oil paintings, Giclée fine art prints, original drawings, original watercolours, and poetry books. Some of the items listed on the website include “View from Innangarðr towards útangarðr,” “Brou-rhuddyn,” “Arion & The Dolphin,” and “Water-fall” among the oil paintings.
The Giclée fine art prints feature works like “Epimetheus,” while the original drawings include “View of rear courtyard from room at hotel Raj Mahal” and “Tibetan Dog Under Bed.” Additionally, they offer original watercolors like “Peacock Cartouche” and “The Iron Bridge.”
For those interested in literature, there are poetry books such as “Twynd” and “Sonarification.”
The range of art and literary works gives a flavour of a commitment to a diverse artistic expression.
For “Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments. Collage was like an image of the revolution within me—not as it was, but as it might have been.” —Kurt Schwitters
“The modern mind is an incredible complex of impressions and transformations; and its product is a fabric of meanings that would make the most elaborate dream of the most ambitious tapersty-weaver look like a mat. The warp of that fabric consists of what we call ‘data,’ the signs [signals] to which experience has conditioned us to attend, and upon which we act often without any conscious ideation. The woof is symbolism. Out of signs and symbols we weave our tissue of ‘reality’.…”
—Susanne Langer Philosophy in a New Key, 1942/71.
“There are a few further points which we ought to note. In the first place, we must remember that we live our childhood as our future. Our childhood determines gestures and roles in the perspective of what is to come. This is not a question of the mechanical reappearance of montages… [The] gestures and roles are inseparable from the project which transforms them… For this reason a life develops in spirals; it passes again and again by the same points but at different levels of integration and complexity.” —J.-P. Sartre The Progressive-Regressive Method,
Search for a Method, 1960 /63.
“Croce was not thinking of poetry in particular
when he said that language is perpetual creation.”—Wallace Stevens
The Necessary Angel, 1965.
Merzman 2011 Conference, Mechanics Institute, Manchester,
Saturday 26th March, 2011
SHED GALLERY is a small space in an allotment. A place for small exhibitions. Based on a community allotment. I took up the challenge of creating a Merz inspired installation. This was organised by Pool Arts, an arts charity that makes opportunities for artists.
The gardener plants but Gaia gives the growth, and I was mulling over that statement last night, wondering what to say,
and if you really think about that, the gardener plants but the God or Nature or Mother Earth or whatever you like to call it, gives the growth, is really quite a profound statement.
The project began like planting a seed, on a Manchester allotment. We got some board from the wood yard. The plywood with its inherent texture, and I set about embellishing it.
And to look at what was there as a seed, a range of photos and magazine cuttings, that I collected over the years. And these I pasted onto the panels, creating the collage. Here is an example of some of those juxtapositions in a syncretic assemblage, including a picture of St Luke, a man with a laptop, Christ, the image of conservation, Hildegard von Binngen, the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, re-tuning the radio receiver, to get a clear picture of the times: The plywood board I started 28th February [2011], photos from magazines,
man with laptop, merz pictures incorporated oxygen mask, double image of Schwitters, collected all these images, which formed the central
panel, of the three panels, but I actually started the three smaller warm-up panels to begin with.
I feel the end result is an artwork of some resonance, and took a lot of energy to create it, but I think it gives out more inspiration in the end. It was a labour of love, and through it I explored many different themes, drawing together several fragments in an alchemical experiment that through the medium of collage, did indeed synthesis and change the baser elements. The best part for me was not only having my work appreciated by others, and all the positive comments, but the miraculous moment when the panels were first installed and the sun shone down on the SHED Gallery, and the camera caught these wonderful golden shapes, which were fantastic.
‘What did you use to create that effect?’
I used a heat gun, also melted wax in different colours, which I applied with brushes and spoons, even a fork, on the wax to create a spiral effect, it was a good way of drawing lots of themes together, the wax fixed the collage; giving a new perspective on the whole work.
I was trying to piece together various different images and collage materials, and combine them to tell a story of significance. By drawing those strands together, to create a total work. It was through retrieving found materials, and joining those with images from other traditions, from Europe, Middle and far East, South Asia. We had a the opening last night.
Chair Alnoor Mitha, FRSA:
It is an excellent setting for the local people in the community to attend. And that it is a beautiful piece of work.
Richard Demarco, CBE:
…[Joseph Beuys] was the co-founder of the green party in Germany,
we were concerned about the environmental problem. This was shown in one of his greatest artworks: 7000 oaks, which he planted, he turned it into a project, the growth of these trees, 7000 trees. Joseph Beuys did like going into art galleries, and the botanic gardens, so he made this art work, and it was placed in the botanic garden to show how everyone should be concentrating on the growth of plants and trees and flowers-as the symbol of the future
and it was in Scotland he got this idea, it seems you can’t imagine the trees, all those who are artists, go anywhere near their garden, to have more trees. Beuysian thinking is part of the incredible idea that came from European continental modernism, and I cannot get around the fact, he was a great artist of Schwitters’ calibre.
I knew I was dealing with unbelievable levels of ignorance, in Britain art world, it took a while for the penny to drop…I think Schwitters is still not quite part of our mindset, we are kind of like a secret society here.
I think the garden shed concept is truly revolutionary. It wouldn’t cost any money, and it encourages a level of thinking that the people of England deserve. I am not here for long, and while I am, I think about the real problem of our times, and concerning Art, which isn’t about entertainment alone, art is NOT entertainment!
I can see in the national festival levels they treat art as entertainment, what we are thinking about here is the reality of that little
plot of grass, the shed is also a place where plants grow, it is not yet identified on the British map of where the great modernist lived and worked, so they are certainly not in the league of Schwitters. We have to set up something that is seriously appropriate. to do something about these real problems.
You are asking for the involvement of more people in Art, in these contexts, and well there is nothing more important when you think about Britain; a country where there are extraordinary manifestations of human nature, but most people want to have a small plot of land, and grow things and create art, and I think it was an amazing event.
We get bored of the never ending exhibitions we get sent to which can be easily forgettable, but we are keen on art that has an environmental message, what it does is it shows the fragility of our civilization, but also and shows where future growth and renewal could take place.
I congratulate this young man, and Pool Arts for bringing him here among us. I don’t trust the modern art world. This exhibition was good because it deals with the huge and overwhelming problems we are faced with, and the future going in the right direction, concerning above all the integrity of the environment.
Chairman:
That really is fantastic for all of us to think about.
There are some subjects which, from their nature, enable the artist to indulge in bursts of eloquence, or in flights of fancy. There are others, again, which, by their very character, are suggestive of those flashes of wit and humour which play, like the summer lightening, over the landscape of our thought. But my subject is not of these. It is neither poetic nor brilliant, and yet, I trust, it will prove neither uninteresting nor unprofitable.
But I give you fair warning that, in order to be so, it will make large demands upon your attention; and that if I make few appeals to your fancy or imagination, it is because the surroundings and the conclusions of my subject are too deep for the one, and too lofty for the other.
It is my hope and trust, however, that before the audience and the artist part company, we shall be satisfied (if not with each other, at least) with the fields of thought over which we have wandered, and with those fruits and flowers of contemplation and knowledge which we have gathered by the way.
If you can see the essence of a work of art-if you can, then it appears to you. The Unity of the work, as a thing in-itself,which rests within itself, and which does not differ in essence from the other things of natureor entities.
Kurt Schwitters, ‘Art & the Times’ Ray, no.1. 1926, (Bodleian library, Oxford).
My journey into the world of Kurt Schwitters began in February 2011, when I was commissioned to create a collage piece for MerzSHED II which would be part of Merzman 2011. It was when I lived in Manchester (2010-2014). Pages 13 and 14 of Joseph Perrin’s ‘The Manchester Handbook’ (1857) expressed some of my misgivings. Quaedam numquam mutant, OR whatever the old tag is. In quite a few instances, experience taught me the hard way. Aut vincere aut mori
From the studio on the fourth floor of an old mill, I could see the Pennines.
Collage has been one method to piece things together. No easy business. He who climbs the Pipleian mount (of poetry) often finds the Muses drive him out with pitchforks.
The MerzSHED II project commission was a challenge. A way to raise oneself out of the morass with a pair of scissors and scraps of printed paper.
For the project I employed the nom du guerre ‘Hazman’. I am unsure as to how I came to this pseudonym; being a combination of my real name (Harry) and something sounding foreign. Hazman is coincidentally the Hebrew word for ‘time’. But for my purpose at that time in recuperatio, a sort of artistic crise d’identité, necessitated an assumed name, perhaps to establish distance between myself and the material, though this was in keeping with Merz, and the inspiration and example of Kurt Schwitters.
“This show links the world of the gardener with that of the ARTIST. Joseph Beuys would have regarded it as an ideal Art gallery. We need more Shed Galleries to give us more for the future for Art. I feel inspired & blessed by this experiece. It proves that it is only a rumour that Kurt Schwitters is dead.”
R Demarco
“I like the way the artist drew on the wood and didn’t just stick it all down also the way the artist used a melted candle. I like the way the artist used cardboard and exposed recycled sign, also the contrast between the white and black cardboard. It’s unusual to see art in a tiny shed in Levenshulme! It’s Great!
S MacGregor (age 11), Stockport
“The dialogue was genius. Collage good. Fresh air chilly. Wine fine. Crisps great. A good event.”
E Meredith, Levenshulme
“The works of Hazman address very serious issues, with great beauty and sensitivity, and love of his fellows. It is full of complex images and words. Eddy Price, on the other hand, has simplified his ideas and images-they suggest colour and form.”
T Newman, Edinburgh
“A very immersive experience – I like the two buildings that house the artworks, a frame of a greenhouse and the small shed! The Shed part in particular is very multi-sensory-musical, with incense, textural artwork. I like that the artist was explaining different elements seen in his artworks to people in detail, and pointing out photos of Schwitters! Of all the events I’ve been to for MerzMan 2011, I think this is the one which enshrines Schwitter’s work and Merz, and for me the best. It has a lovely atmosphere; far different to most previews.”
N Bradbury, Ancoats
Interesting set-up. Liked the collage work and additional art work in the Shed. Made me think about what Art is, who its for and where it can take people. Food for thought. I liked the variety of materials within the collage. Whole visit interesting – will recommend it!
L Evans, Chorlton
I found the exhibition in the shed fascinating. Very unusual. I am not the arty type, but I liked this exhibition.
P Bogart, Salford
I feel I have learnt about an aspect of art-style which was not known to me before. I appreciated Harry’s help at interpretation. The venue is very relaxing and inspiring.
Pam Schwarz, West Didsbury
I enjoyed the relationship betwen the rural and an urban environment. Also the collage of allotments that ties into the collage of the art work by Hazman. Thank you for hospitality.
J Alman, Chorlton-on-Medlock
“A deeply personal work, exquisitely multi-layered, and I could stare at it for hours. I am reminded of Christ Pantokrator in the St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai, in mediaeval Armenian Church art, and in the Byzantine cento poetic form. This and so much more-I particularly respect the author’s deeply syncretic synthesis of religious and philosophical perspectives. It must have taken a lot out of the artist to have expressed all this in concrete form. An imaginative experience. I should love to come again.”
R Enmarch, Liverpool
“Blown away! Sunny Saturday choc-full of ART. Perfect setting. Challenging art, but finds its place in the context of pioneering visionaries, perfect people, and place for the work (I even got the Joseph Beuys influences-Roy did, I didn’t!). Love it! Congratulations to artists, mentors and facilitators. Keep it going: sheds all over the World (and beyond-Sheds in Space!)”
“The avant-garde task is to deal with what nobody else is attending to. This keeps widening human consciousness and keeps balance in the universe.” – James Broughton
“We’re living through what philosopher, linguist and poet Jean Gebser calls the late-stage [left-brain], deficient mode of the mental-rational structure of consciousness – with no guarantee that we’ll survive to evolve into a more integral mode of thought and action / being.” – Ishraqi Institute. See: Jean Gebser.
“His intimate consciousness has become a perfectly polished mirror; it faces the true Being; it reflects all Lights, it lives on earth the very life of the angelic Intelligences & the celestial Souls. It has now become an Aeon, a monad that is an entire universe” – Henri Corbin
“A poet writes always of his personal life; in his finest work out of its tragedy, whatever it be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness; he never speaks directly as to someone at the breakfast table, there is always a phantasmagoria…Even when the poet seems most himself, when he is Raleigh and gives potentates the lie, or Shelley ‘a nerve o’er which do creep the else unfelt oppressions of this earth,’ or Byron ‘and the soul wears out the breast’ as ‘the sword outwears its sheath,’ he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.”
–From ‘A General Introduction for my Work’, W.B.Yeats.
The panels are expressive, with concentrated moods. It contains biographical ephemera, humorous fragments?, some serious social commentary and a dose of spirituality. It is drawing on on realist, expressionist as well as Byzantine traditions. You could say it is a mix-up of colour and image; a kaleidoscopic collage.
The collage is packed full of detail. Swirls of red and yellow encaustic wax, with blue & sap green. Dammar crystals ground.
When did it begin?
The project was planned on Thursday 10th February 2011, and I became enthusiastic about using encaustic wax with collage.
Schwitter’s settled here and started the Merz barn relief. He died before he could complete it in 1948.
“Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush,
We are but critics, or but half create,
Timid, entangled, empty and abashed,
Lacking the countenance of our friends.”
–WB Yeats, Ego Dominus Tuus, 1918 book Per Amica Silentia Lunae
“In the arts we find meaning to have dimensions that the methods of reasoning employed in science have yet to
discover.”
