Water Bearers

“I’m attracted to the multifaceted symbolism present in mermaid imagery. The way that the conscious and subconscious bodies are represented as human and cetacean forms respectively demonstrates this enduring need for people to visualize an embodied spiritual presence in the deepest sense. It’s sensuousness and grace while swimming in murky water represents a type of psychological viscera. It’s form is both familiar and alien, enticing and menacing, and they are mythologized to have the seductive song of its narrative predecessor the sirens. While historically mermaids have been this sexualized figure, one that is desired but unattainable for dif erent reasons, I think of that more as a projection by people trying to control someone that they are both attracted to and intimidated by, which is something I relate to as a sex worker. There’s a queerness to this erotic elusiveness and dimensionality, to being projected onto, being unattainable, and being mythologized. The supernatural being arises out of myth, and the otherwise stable identities of those who are in the presence of supernatural beings or conditions are disrupted, sometimes to the point of irrationality and violence. I think of the myths they create for white folks about Black people – that we are somehow both animals and superhuman, undesirable and irresistible. They tell these myths about trans and non binary people too. It’s a positioning that I think a lot of people who are oppressed under white supremacist cis-hetero patriarchy can relate to.” - Whit Harris

Whit Harris (b. 1985, Brooklyn, NY)'s inky, surreal canvases and works on paper conjure fantastical figures in moments of vulnerable introspection in a monochromatic or limited color palette. Her aquatic scenes, featuring mermaids, fish, plants and skulls dissipating and materializing among a lush habitation, draw on a variety of sources including Buddhism, Hellenistic astrology and Surrealism. Inspired by modernists like Picasso and Chagall, these imaginary, murky realms are rife with subconscious symbolism, offering a glimpse into the intuitive and sensual nature of her psyche. Her recent exhibitions include We Were Never Gone at Hauser & Wirth in New York, and Flesh and Time and Bread and Friends at Galerie Christine Mayer in Munich. Whit attended the Artist in Residence at Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut in 2019, and will be participating in a clay residency at Artshack Brooklyn in summer 2022. Whit completed her MFA at Hunter College and BA at Stony Brook University. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.