Maia : Your paintings are telling the story of an experienced man, a man with a great passion, a traveler, an adventurer…I can feel the scent of that night life, feel the taste of wine and excitement while watching the erotic scenes you paint…Will you tell me more about your adventures?
Harry : Passion…what is passion? Claude Monet , painted a series of canvases , like the Haystacks in the field, or the Cathedral — to capture the moment in a day , a certain light….his passion it seems to me was trying to show reality, how it constantly changes , moment to moment, hour by hour…
Englishman Francis Bacon’s passion was ignited by a single frame in a film by Great Russian Film Director, Sergei Eisenstein’s “Potemkin” Bacon used a still , of the nurse shot in the face by advancing Russian troops during the Russian Revolution on the steps of Odessa, the start of the Russian Revolution. He became passionate about the “scream” much as Edvard Munch painted the “scream” The open mouth of the screaming nurse , dominated Bacon’s paintings for many year, including, his class Screaming Pope ” series, influenced by a painting of a quiet pope who in actuality is screaming underneath in his passion.
My passion is the satisfaction at the completion of a painting , that is exactly how I envisioned it. I never make any sketches. I work with pen and ink on canvas. No mistakes allowed. Drawing in pen and ink is a very difficult medium, unlike charcoal or pencil drawings, which can be erased ,in pen and ink there is no room for error.
People often ask me after a work is sold and gone, if I could make another copy original for them, and the answer is no, unable. Impossible even for me to copy one of my originals exactly. The nuance of the pen and ink line is subtle and cannot be duplicated by copying .
My passion comes from upon the completion of a work, which usually is not exactly what I envisioned, but better than I anticipated. Accident comes into play, like how the watercolor on canvas I used, dries on the canvas, all kinds of different colorations and textures. So the accidents on the canvas determines the direction the painting will be going.
As photographer Atget ,did with his camera, record the everyday in Paris , I record my experiences of people interacting day to day, in restaurants, bars, nite clubs, beaches, homes etc.
Simple answer: I paint the everyday experience of encounters by men an women. I love to paint, sexy , erotic beautiful women.
Read an exclusive interview with Harry, written by Maia Sylba in the new edition of Musetouch Visual Arts Magazine.
