artist statement ...

my paintings are improvisational -
like jazz ...

informed by nature and responding to the ever-changing conditions of its life force,
the paintings are symphonies of compressed time ...

through multiple layers of application and natural selection,
their surfaces ultimately reveal a tactile history of the process ...

i’m inspired by the lyrical qualities
of work by Tiepolo, Masson, Dufy, and Gorky;
the colorful playfulness of Cezanne, Chagall, Mompo, and DeKooning;
the urgency and deliberate approach of Pollock, Twombly, and Moses ...
the conceptual harmony of Smithson, Polke, and Rabinowitch ...
and distressed surfaces of frescoes,
ancient manuscripts, and medieval paintings ...

over the last ten years
the majority of my work has been produced outdoors
beneath a lush canopy of forest amid abundant fauna
in Upper Bucks County, PA along the Delaware River ...

those are the rhythms i’m playing to ...


critical notes:

“he effectively combines a wide range of disparate information in order to suggest a constantly transmutating world, a world where nothing is ever still. It is a world where numerous events are occurring simultaneously, a place where sudden as well as constant change is the norm ...”
John Yau

“one is reminded of the process by which they came into being - through the sensuousness of surface texture created by the veiled layers of paint that reveal only the necessary elements of the mystery of being ...”
Sandra Erikson

“it’s like creating a new language from bits and pieces of various old languages - now comes Harryn with his unlikely choices and juxtapositions laying the groundwork for some overdue ‘new’ ideas ...”
Michael Lally