Acts of Incline is a series of paintings by Marion Harper using a restrained palette, arranged into pairs. The paintings are part of an ongoing interrogation into the way bodies are held in space. Whether sentient or inanimate, these bodies, these objects, are conceived as morphic forms prone to the will of gravitational forces. A play of wills between objects and space reveals the vital relation between ground and gravity. However, as Marion notes, the intention was to do more than depict figures in space. It was to “test thresholds, shift perspectives”, and produce surfaces that resonate (vibrate) with sensational affect. “Bodies lean, angle, and reorient; they negotiate gravity, architecture and furniture to locate new positions from which to sense and think.”

Subjects are discovered in the throes of bodily/nervy movement (somewhere) between steadiness and dizziness, plasticity and tautness, frailty and strength... It becomes a decisive point towards hopeful growth and transformation, or a slide back into
old, fixed ways.

Catalogue excerpt Jan Bryant, 2026