nik harron » destruction

Gravel Pit

artnik — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:10:13 +0000

This image is a diagrammatic representation of the gravelpit, similar to the ones that dot the landscape in southwestern Ontario. The strong vignetting and aged tone lend a nostalgic feeling, as if to suggest the loss of what was once there.

24x24in
Acrylic on panel
2011

This painting is available for purchase

Meanwhile…

artnik — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:12:11 +0000

Outside of my normal style, this painting was created to celebrate the birthday of my close friend Chris McInnis, curator of Über Cool Stuff, a Geek Boutique located in London, Ontario. Considering what a colossal comic geek Chris is, I wanted to create something special to mark his birthday, and as we’re both fans of Jim Kirby’s classic character Galactus, it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be the inspiration.

The illustration is heavily influenced by Jim Lee’s interpretation of the character, and depicts a sullen Galactus— Devourer of Worlds— peering over the rim of a new world, contemplating what is about to happen.

Happy birthday Chris!

“Meanwhile…”
36x36in
Acrylic on panel
2011

This piece is in the private collection of Chris McInnis.

Trinity II

artnik — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:24:29 +0000

This is the second painting on the same subject matter as the original Trinity triptych. This time, it is a more concrete representation of the atomic test landscape, incorporating concrete references to different time-frames, mechanics and effects of the detonation which are not actually simultaneous or of similar scale in reality. The flowing green below the blast refers to the artificial mineral Trinitite – fused green glass created from the sand melted at the base of the detonation.

Sadly, this painting is also not a representation of a sunrise or a sunset.

trinity II

2004
acrylic on canvas
36x36in
This painting is available for purchase.

Trinity

artnik — Sun, 07 Jan 2001 00:02:56 +0000

This painting is one of the original 4 landscapes that moved me from narrative works and urban network themes to confronting the individual relationship to nature as a way of exploring the fertile landscapes of internal, spiritual experience. Of the four original landscapes, this painting shares the greatest amount of focus on urban, technological themes with any painting that came before it.

I like to ask people what they think the landscape depicts, and unfortunately, this is not a painting of a sunset or sunrise. The painting is actually an abstract representation of the first moments of the world’s first atomic bomb explosion – the Trinity test. The text carved into the painting, from left to right, explores the irony inherent in the fact that, mathematically speaking, models of the large-scale “texture” in the universe’s big-bang afterglow are good analogues of the math describing the first moments of the detonation of an atomic bomb. In a singularly 20th century acension day, that initial devastating creative act of “let there be light” awkwardly echoing Oppenheimer’s famous borrowing from the Bhagavad Gita: ”If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one… Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

It is a bleak, artificial landscape.

The other 3 paintings moved from this view of our destructive relationship with nature towards a deeper examination of the various ways that we relate to nature. The second painting was a depiction of a similar fiery destruction that is part of the natural order (i.e. forest fires).

The third painting in the exhibition was a representation of the deeply individual experience of lying back in tall, fragrant grass on the edge of sleep at sunset on a warm summer’s evening- a direct, individual experience of nature.

The fourth painting examined the abstract quantum duality at the heart of our understanding of reality which is a completely mental relationship with nature – both a benign opposite to where we started, whilst also being ironically full circle inasmuch as it is representative of the same science that gave us the atom bomb in the first place.

The text and linear grooves carved into the surface of the fourth painting examined the paradox that light can be described and observed as a particle under some circumstances and as a wave in others. Existing in different states was represented metaphorically as a Lake Huron landscape in which ice masses on the horizon towards the end of the melt while open water lies between it and the viewer onshore who looks out towards the ice.

After these four paintings carved narrative text has all but disappeared from my landscape work.

trinity

2001
acrylic on canvas
36x108in
collection of Janet McLeod

Forest fire.

artnik — Sat, 06 Jan 2001 00:28:12 +0000

This painting is the second in the original series of four landscapes that I did for the Carpe Vinum show in 2001. It continues to explore the themes of destruction, nature and light that underscored “trinity“.

Although deceptively bleak, the text carved into the surface draws parallels the irony that events which can seem devastating often perform a necessary function to allow life-affirming growth and development – a theme that is explored not only in the context of trees seeding in the flames, but also the life-cycle of an individual.

forest fire

2001
acrylic on canvas
36x108in
collection of Chad Towsley & Amber McIntyre