The Black Forest in South-West Germany is a dense forest crammed with enchantment and legends. It served as inspiration for lots of the Brothers Grimm’s tales and continues to encourage. This time, within the work of British artist Stephen Harrison, who labored as a schoolteacher in Germany.
We could also be in a gallery area in Acton, West London, however lose ourselves in Harrison’s work and we’re transported from wet London to the verdant Black Forest. A hazy determine will be seen within the panorama; ballet dancers with a lit-up home within the background really feel surreal, and what seems like a creature coated in blood heightens the intimidation issue.
There’s a motive fairy tales happen in forests, and Harrison is inviting you to get misplaced within the fantastical narratives that his works create. He’s experimenting with pastel, oil, and acrylic paints and attracts inspiration from the works of David Blackburn, which we are able to see in how the layers bleed into each other. The works also can resemble Turner or Monet at their haziest, permitting the background picture to be seen once we examine them.
Whereas there are a lot of modern painters analyzing panorama portray in a looser type, suppose Peter Doig or Hurvin Anderson, what’s distinctive about Harrison’s work is the Surrealist components and his deep connection to the Black Forest and its historical past of myth-making and enchantment. Magical realism is having a second in modern artwork for the time being, and as Harrison’s work develops and brings in additional references to the native myths and legends, I really feel like his work would match neatly into that zeitgeist.
Harrison spent his life as a trainer and got here to artwork later in life, proving that artwork can discover you at any stage in life, and it’s by no means too late to have a private Renaissance. It’s clear from the work on this present that he’s constructing his distinctive type in voice in each how he paints and the tales he needs to inform via his works.
An early figurative work is proven as a distinction to his later works, and whereas there are stylistic similarities to his later works, it’s clear that his work is shifting in a special course. Although like all good painters discovering their voice, he hasn’t written off probably returning to the figurative as his type develops.
It’s all the time thrilling to look at a painter refine their type, and it’s by no means clear whether or not we’re almost there or if their work will take a radical flip and take us in a brand new course. Simply as Stephen Harrison’s work take us on a journey into the Black Forest, we’re additionally seeing his journey as an artist develop. Let’s see the place each take us.
Stephen Harrison’s work had been on show at W3 Gallery in Acton from 15-30 January 2026.
All pictures are copyrighted by the artist.
