Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

This collaborative team creates haunting, vintage-looking images that frequently feature a lone man in an odd, barren dystopia. The figure, in his ill-fitting suit, struggles with strange contraptions and Sisyphean tasks, listens to the earth through a giant ear trumpet, mends a scarred landscape with a giant needle and thread, or attempts to free himself from chains or a tangle of wires. When he appears with others, they may be duplicates of himself. Presented as small gravures, or as large, mounted photographs with mixed media, they draw the viewer into a world both nightmarish and hopeful.
 
While prior to 2001 the work was signed by Robert ParkeHarrison, since that time they have been exhibiting as joint creators.
 
Education
 
Robert ParkeHarrison
BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, 1990
MFA, University of New Mexico, 1994
 
Shana ParkeHarrison
BFA, William Woods College (Fulton, MO), 1986
 
Recent solo exhibitions
 
2006 "The Architect’s Brother", Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
2005 "The Architect’s Brother", University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
2005 "The Architect’s Brother", University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
2004 "The Architect’s Brother", Decordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
2004 Bernie Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
2004 Art Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2004 Art Gallery, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI
2003 "The Sentinels", Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY
2003 "The Architect’s Brother", Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
 
Monographs
 
Listening to the Earth, Photographs by Robert ParkeHarrison, Peoms by Morrie Creech. 21st, The Journal for Contemporary Photography, Spring 2004
 
The Architect’s Brother Essay by WS Merwin. Twin Palms/Twelve Trees Press, Fall 2000 (2nd Edition)
 
Collections
 
Collections include the Los Angeles County Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the Houston Museum of Art.
 
Submitted in September, 2006 by Nancy Breslin