ARTIST STATEMENT

This body of work is characterised by repetition and systematic processes, but stops short of excluding individual touch. Although they are based on rational and pragmatic principles, the paintings are sensual and engaging. Each painting is a permutation of a compellingly simple idea. Faced with the self-imposed task of producing a colourful painting, Harper takes the primaries and devises a system of continuously mixing or nudging each colour through a potentially infinite number of possibilities. No two mixes can be identical, each shade bearing the trace of those before it. Key decisions about how each painting will be produced are made before the first colour is applied; but the execution itself is virtuosic rather than perfunctory; visceral rather than mechanical.