Early Life and Artistic Training

Brent Harris was born in 1956 in Palmerston North, New Zealand. His early years in Aotearoa New Zealand were marked by a difficult childhood, an experience that would later provide the foundation for his creative development. These formative years helped shape the perspective he would eventually bring to his visual practice.

Seeking to formalize his interest in visual expression, Harris moved to Australia in 1981. He began his professional training in Melbourne, earning a Diploma of Art and Design from Footscray College of TAFE. This period of study allowed him to build the technical skills necessary for a career in the fine arts.

Harris continued his education at the Victorian College of the Arts, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Art. This academic background provided the framework for a long career spanning several decades. His transition from New Zealand to the Australian art scene marked the beginning of a life dedicated to exploring complex imagery through various printmaking and painting methods.

Career and International Residencies

After leaving New Zealand, Harris moved to Australia in 1981. He eventually settled in Melbourne, where he continues to live and work today. His career has been shaped by a steady presence in the Australian art scene, moving through various stages of professional development and exhibition.

His practice has frequently taken him beyond the borders of Australia, allowing him to engage with different printmaking traditions and environments. In 1999, he spent time in Japan during a residency at Nagasawa Art Park. This period of international study was followed by a residency in Singapore in 2004, which was supported by the Tyler Print Institute. These experiences abroad helped inform the technical breadth of his work.

In 2008, he was awarded a residency in Rome by the Australia Council. This time in Italy provided a significant opportunity to expand his perspective while working away from his home base in Melbourne. His career has since been marked by a continuous engagement with both public and private collections across Australia and New Zealand.

Technique and Artistic Style

Harris works with a sense of constant movement between different ways of making. He does not stick to a single lane, instead working concurrently across painting, printmaking, and drawing. This approach is generative; he allows each medium to feed into the next, letting one process influence the next in ways he might not have planned at the start. It is a way of working where the boundaries between a sketch and a finished print often blur, allowing the art to evolve through a series of unexpected shifts.

His imagery often feels unsettled and ambiguous. He draws on the Surrealist technique of automatic drawing to reach into the unconscious, letting forms emerge without the interference of conscious thought. This method helps him access imagery that feels deeply personal yet remains difficult to pin down. The resulting shapes and figures carry a weight of mystery, born from a process of excavation that has spanned several decades of his practice.

Major Works and Collections

The reach of Harris’s practice extends through several significant public institutions across Australia and New Zealand. His prints and drawings are held within the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in London. In his home region, his work is part of the permanent collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth. He is also represented in the collections of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and the Gippsland Art Gallery.

Specific pieces from his career offer a glimpse into his long-standing engagement with different printmaking methods. In 1989, he produced He Takes the Cross, an aquatint created on ivory wove paper. Later, in 2020, he worked with polymer gravure etching and watercolour to create The Fall. These works reflect a career that has spanned decades, moving through various technical shifts and geographic locations.