Many of my paintings depict ordinary human ideas and actions through extraordinary characters. I enjoy using bold color and patterns which serve as a foundation for the solitary, absurd and determined subjects I invent. I am attracted to the hard-edged, precise techniques found in pop art, graphic design, and comic art which I employ to produce direct, smoothly painted canvasses. This selection of artworks, which focusses on bird imagery, leans into my love of pattern and the primitive quality of shape. Small mixed media sculptures have been a consistent artform for me-an engaging effort which allows me to indulge in the beauty and complexity of design, yielding surprisingly human like personality traits in every bird.
— Elyse Harrison
Elyse Harrison has been exhibiting her art since the mid 1970s in the Washington, DC area. Her work includes paintings, mixed media sculptures and commercially commissioned site-specific murals. She has received numerous awards and grants throughout the years and maintains an active studio and a micro gallery in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. She was the owneroperator of Gallery Neptune, a regional contemporary gallery from 2003-2010, and the owner-operator of Studio Neptune, an art education program for children from 1990-2017, also located in downtown Bethesda. Her art has been reviewed in The Washington Post The Gazette Newspapers, Modernism Magazine and The Baltimore City Paper.