Marita Smith is excited to welcome Marion Harper to Gallerysmith.
Merricks based painter Marion Harper seeks to address, dissolve and reform ideas about what it means to be embodied. She has recently completed her MFA (Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts (2024) and holds a BFA in painting (VCA). An accomplished painter, her practice extends into video, installation, ceramic and photo-based media.
Her recent body of work introduces the figure, depicting interactions between bodies, both human and nonhuman, in the negotiation of sharing space. Marion describes her conceptual motivations as being ‘infused with questions of subjectivity, politics, ethics, and what it means to be a human today.’
Soft limbs and languid bodies poke through and slump against carboard boxes. These figures protrude from impossibly small spaces, raising questions about resilience, and the ability to adapt and compromise. The human body conforms and gives way to the geometries of the environment, which Harper composes like a staged set. The constructed environment provides a duality of child-like playfulness and physical obstruction within the picture plane.