"In any given moment, what we see reflects both our inner state and a synthesis of outer qualities—light, color, movement, space. My exploration in dimensional photographic art represents an attempt to recreate the perceptual experience, with its dynamic nature and hidden complexities.
​Hopefully, each of my images can allow for as many interpretations as there are people viewing it."

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Howard Harris

​Howard Harris is a fine art photographer who is known for his dimensional, multi-layered images. The Denver Colorado native earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri and Master of Industrial Design from Pratt in New York. His images appear in many books and publications. He shows in galleries in the US, UK and throughout Europe.

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Why did you become an artist?
I don’t think I became an artist, I was born to be an artist. I can’t think of a time when art was not part of my life. From as early as I can remember art of some type-painting, sculpture, photography, theater, etc. has always been around me. It is only a foggy memory, but I took my first formal drawing class when I was 8 10 years old. I only have two vivid memories of that class. One was that the class was held in an “artist” style loft (very cool) and the other was the teacher laughing at me when I drew a fox with a tail that looked like it exploded out of the fox’s rear end. For some reason that failure just inspired me to refine my aspirations and pursue following my intuition and imagination.

You capture a moment in time and work to expand on that moment. Share some insight into your process.
I use a digital single frame camera to capture the base image I use to save the moment. Since my camera can only capture the image at shutter speeds, I try to internalize the full dimensionality of the moment. The image becomes my note of reference for the memory that caused me to shoot the image. Then I use various technologies to isolate and evaluate the color, line, and form. I then exaggerate or morph the image into a symphony of color, shapes, and forms that hopefully express a sense of time, space, point of view and my emotions.

​You described your work as "combining technology and aesthetics". Why are aesthetics a key factor in your art?
The word "aesthetics" derives from the Greek "aisthetikos", meaning "of sense perception.” In short when one successfully combines the tangible (technology) with the intangible (aesthetics) it becomes transcendent.

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Howard Harris

"The discipline of accepting critique as a complement pushes me to pursue greater levels of refinement, helps me to understand how others perceive my art, and drives me to explore new territories."
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Your professional career background was in industrial design. How has this background contributed to your art ?
The study of industrial design gave me the range of tools to go beyond my own imagination. Studying industrial design has given me the ability to create and develop concepts and specifications that optimize function, value, and appearance of products and systems. It has given me the methodologies to combine art, business, and engineering to create a pleasing product. And it is this combination that continually energizes my thoughts and actions. The discipline of accepting critique as a complement pushes me to pursue greater levels of refinement, helps me to understand how others perceive my art, and drives me to explore new territories.

​​To experience its fullest impact, your work is best viewed in person. What factors influence this?
We live in a three-dimensional world and use our eyes to process an image through the advantage of stereoscopic vision to transmit the image to our brain. What most of us do not realize is that stereoscopic vision relies on the physical properties of parallax to decode what we are seeing. When you add lighting, emotions, and environment - it is only then when one has the full experience of the image. I apologize for the somewhat technical explanation, but it is necessary to know why viewing my two-dimensional images online gives one a completely different experience than viewing art in person. When viewing online, color is determined by variables such as monitor quality and the individual computer’s color settings. That is why the foundation of my “dimensional” art must be an aesthetically pleasing image that could stand on its own merits both online and in person. Adding dimension to my images hopefully triggers a deeper visual/emotional response when viewed in person.

​In 2017 you received a USA Patent for a Layered Artwork. Please tell us about this.
When I first presented my work to the public, I received many comments such as: “I’ve never seen anything like this before!” and “How did you do it?” These types of comments helped me acknowledge that my work may be notably unique. Then, during an art festival, I showed alongside a photographer who was also an attorney and kept telling me that I should patent my photographic constructions. Many of his attorney friends also told me I should patent my work. That got me thinking as a marketer that a patent might give me a sales edge. Although I had gone through the patent process years earlier with another of my inventions, I had no real expectations that art could be patented. I talked to many patent attorneys that advised me against wasting my time and money until I found one that understood the uniqueness of my process. After three years, thousands of dollars, and hundreds of hours: the US Patent Office found my work unique enough to be granted a patent!

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"I was surprised that my work has been recognized in the way it has."

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​​In a relatively short art career, you have received some major recognitions. Tell us about some of them and how have they impacted you.
I knew my work was unique because of the many comments I received from viewers and galleries. But honestly, I was surprised that my work has been recognized in the way it has been – receiving the accolades of critics and honored with so many awards. Appearing on the covers of books and magazines and receiving many American and European awards is very gratifying. However, I can’t single out any one award as being more important than any other. All of these honors and awards have had an impact on my art, and they have given me confidence in myself and work. However, each accolade, award, or recognition really comes as a surprise because my primary goal is not to please others. My real goal it is to please myself.

​You stated that "visual reality is an ever-shifting, highly individualized experience - based on inner and outer states". How do you accommodate for a range of inner states in viewers when creating your work?
I really do not accommodate anyone else’s inner states because it is hard enough to accommodate my own. The work reflects my inner “state du jour.” However, with that said, I do understand that everyone’s else’s visual reality and inner state is an ever-shifting experience too. In any given moment, what we see reflects both our inner state and a synthesis of outer qualities—light, color, movement, space. My exploration in dimensional photographic art represents an attempt to recreate the perceptual experience, with its dynamic nature and hidden complexities. Hopefully, each of my images can allow for as many interpretations as there are people viewing it.

​Which artists are you most influenced by?
The short answer to this question is: “pretty much all artists who work in multiple versions of the arts and use multi-disciplinary techniques to push the edges of perception.” The longer answer to this question is: “I am inspired by so many in the arts world.” Here are a few that I admire and am inspired by: Rowena Reed Kostellow, Julian Stanczak, Moholy-Nagy, Bridget Riley, Josef Albers, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Victor Vasarely, Yacov Agam, Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Marcel Duchamp, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti and Constantin Brancusi. I thought I would stop here with the arts world. From the photographic world (understanding many do and have done more than photography) I admire Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Diane Arbus, Edward Weston, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. From the architectural/design world (yes, most did more than just architecture) Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Ray Eames. I could go on and on naming sculptors, philosophers, and physicists but, I think you get the wide variety of people that have influenced my vision, aesthetics, and technology.

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"The work reflects my inner “state du jour.”

"My work synthesizes Eastern and Western concepts into a tapestry of thought that helps me begin to understand the world."
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​How has your practice changed over time?
My artwork has progressed through several stages throughout my adventure as an artist.

• The first stages of my work were mostly technology-based, using the camera, with what one would consider a “good eye.” (Meaning I did what I did somewhat unconsciously.) The “art” or image just happened because I understood technology and was lucky with subject, composition, etc.
• The second stage of my work began in the early 70’s at the Kansas City Art Institute. It was there I began to understand that mastering technology was just part of the “art” equation. Going through their foundational program helped me realize that intuition and a good eye were great, but without the discipline of deliberateness all my art would continue to be either lucky or random. It was there that I became a deliberate artist, able to control my actions and images.
• The third stage also happened at the Kansas City Art Institute, where I used my artistic talents to pursue design. The quest to create for others (as a designer) overpowered my desire to create art for myself (as a fine artist). My technological skills improved not only with the mechanics of creating images, but the mechanics of my thought also improved. It was at the Art Institute where I began to understand, through my mentor George Burris, how connected all the arts were with everything in nature, science, mathematics, and the rest of the world. It is with this seed of understanding that I began my quest to try to really understand and define the connections.
• The fourth stage of my art happened when I went to Pratt Institute to study under Rowena Reed Kostellow. By this time, I was clearly on the design track, not the fine art track, and wanted to learn Industrial Design from one of the founders of that profession. It was Rowena that helped me discover that the understanding of technology of machine and thought were not enough. One also needs the understanding of self, vision, emotion and surprise to create either good design or good art. There need not be a difference between design and art. Yes, they can exist separately but when they come together it is “nirvana”.
• The fifth stage really lasted from the early 70’s through 2011. I became part of a 5-person company that I grew to over 160 people based on the concept of merging technology with design with the end goal to make it art.​Honestly, 95% of what we created I would classify as design. But he 5% that could be considered “art” helped the entire company keep going with the knowledge that art was possible in a very commercial setting.
• In the sixth stage of my quest to create fine art, I have come to realize that up until now I have really worked as a designer- not an artist. During this stage I experimented with different types of images, different technologies and different artistic thought. One might say I was struggling to suppress my marketing design instincts and accentuate my own thoughts. Self critique is so much harder than critique by others, however to transition from designer to fine art I realized I must develop and practice a strong sense of self critique. The seventh stage of my development takes the learning from the sixth stage and adding color to my thought. My images reflect my vision. I use design as a basis for the image composition and augment the vision with color, line, and volume. Light and color have become more important elements in defining my images.​

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"I chose to live with challenges because I know no other way."

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How does Eastern philosophy influence your art?
This question demands a clarification as to what I feel Eastern philosophy means vs. Western philosophy. I feel that Eastern philosophy takes more of a spiritual approach to life while Western philosophy is more mechanistic in its approach. Rather than calling either one a “philosophy” - I prefer calling it Eastern or Western thought. My work synthesizes Eastern and Western concepts into a tapestry of thought that helps me begin to understand the world. And coming from a clearly Western point of view, Eastern thought has given me permission to go beyond the definable. For example, Western thought affirms that 1+1 always equals 2. Eastern thought allows for this simple equation to equal something different depending on exactly what each “1” represents. String theory, chaos theory, quantum physics, and fluid dynamics help me try to Westernize my Eastern thought. However, those studies only give me shadows of what Eastern thought may be doing inside me…

​You have spoken abut the role that your professor Rowena Reed Kostellow played in your career. Please share more insight into this.
Rowena’s teaching approach drew on modern scientific methods that supported self-expression as well as design for industry. I can’t explain this better than Gail Hannah did in her book about Rowena, “it is impossible to reproduce the experience of being and working in her classroom. And the essence of Rowena Reed’s teaching was the experience itself. In fact, she called the exercises in her courses “experiences” because they led students to insight through intense, in-the-moment concentration, discovery, and revelation. They were powerful, personal epiphanies that finally defy description”. She also taught me that beauty was a mystery to be solved. Her principals and methods are forever imprinted on my work, including my independent work with her. We had an agreement that I would teach her computers and she would teach me design. The quest to attain beauty was her design goal, and mine was translating beauty through computing. Having a greater understanding of computer technology in the 1970’s led to her believe as do I, (to this day!) that the computer can define and create everything correctly and the product can still be ugly. Our studies led her to include in her teachings a caution against using the computer to do things that she believed only the human eye and hand could do. Even though Rowena didn’t think of her thoughts as being Eastern in nature, my desire to further understand these emotional perceptual concepts led me to study Eastern philosophies.

​You have excelled in two worlds (industrial design and photographic arts). What drives you to keep exploring?
Life without a challenge is just existing. I chose to live with challenges because I know no other way. Just existing is as boring as creating that which is safe and known. My quest to create a color that I have never seen or a shape that never existed - and to make it beautiful-keeps me going and alive. Knowing that my first mark on a canvas is equal to a Picasso or Miro keeps me going. It is what I do after that mark is challenging. My quest to find the hidden complexities of nature and understand the dynamics of human perception gives me an infinite palette of abstractions to explore. Arshile Gorky said, “Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes... Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an exploration into unknown areas.” I will continue my quest into the unknown with the hope that whatever I strive to create will be aesthetically pleasing, and forever changing.

You have described travelling as a particular source of inspiration. Which destinations have been most inspiring and where do you want to visit post-COVID?
I have been lucky enough to be able to travel to so many destinations throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and the US. Each different location was equally inspiring in different ways.


Website: www.hharrisphoto.com

Howard Harris