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Fine Artist
haron Harmon Muir
Artist's Statement
My introduction to painting was through theater. Early on I studied with Andres Nomikos, former opera designer with LaScalla and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. I copied the masters and learned the classical techniques of painting. Theater has been a unique foundation for me to create paintings.
As a scene designer I had to research the play and its world. For every play I would learn about the magic of creating a place that makes something happen for an audience. The audience has to believe that where the play happens is really somewhere, that what they're seeing is really a believable entire world. Not necessarily realistic, but immediately believable. Any abstraction cannot compromise the believability of the place.
In theater, the designer's renderings are tools for communication. I became skilled in making renderings, quick sketches for the director. In the same way now, in my painting I can realize the dimensions of my subject quickly and forcefully. Many of my watercolors communicate as I would have communicated with a theater director, the mood, the sense of place.
My paintings capture moments in time. Like a play, each picture is a piece of a scene, and a part of a larger picture, a story. I am fascinated by the history and myths contained in a place, by the feeling of a moment, of what we call daily reality. Painting for me is seeing more.
The subject is important because it becomes important. The subject always has meaning to me. I communicate about the place, the people, the subject; it is all very personal. I find myself frequently painting small things, common things — a tin roof shed, birds, kids on the beach — recognizable things. Common things often have more related to them than initially meets the eye.
My painting is generally realistic. The wonderful colors and textures I see or sense heighten my palette. I enjoy exploring light and shadow and elusive colors. Sometimes, Although my paintings may not be realistic in color, each is a believable world. Recent work has focused on nature, architecture and a wide experience of life in the places I live and work: the coastal region of North Carolina and the desert plateau of India.
Watercolor has become my main media. It has superseded my acrylic work, and now most of my work is in this medium. The fluidity and speed of watercolor allow for an easy flow between seeing and sensing, which helps me create a deeper view of the subject than usually perceived.
My painting experience is an ecstatic sensation of eye-hand communication. It's an incredible high when I paint. I'm in that magical suspension; hand and eye are communicating without "me" in there, anywhere. When I paint, I lose total track of time and space. Hours disappear and then… there is a painting.
I want to share this immediate, total unselfconsciousness with those
who view my paintings, especially that one person for whom it has most
meaning. I want the same joy I feel about painting my subjects to be felt
by others, a reinforcement of the good things that the subject is giving.
The overall intent is that the audience is drawn into this world, in all
aspects. They participate, as in a live theater in this
interaction between the work of art and its intended audience.
There is no non-living thing. The world to me is always a world of potential and possibilities. And that goodness is joyous. It is a feeling that leads me to portray and paint the subjects as I do, with their potential goodness. When I paint, I'm hopefully sharing, hopefully giving also a moment of that innate joy.
Art is a shared lens. For you to share what I see joins us together in a comprehensive language, an unlimited wordless communication of experiences. The only thing that actually exists, reality, is now. Each second, each present. The past is a memory, and the future is a dream. And in my paintings, I'm presenting something that exists now. Not a travel log, nor a reproduction, nor simply a memory.
Each painting is an attempt to capture the beauty and transience of a moment, the momentary play of light through a tree on a building, the brilliance of color in a flower as it reaches its peak of bloom, or the flash of a peacock tail as its intricate detail becomes an explosion of exquisite and intense colors.
I seek for my paintings to be grounded in that moment while encompassing a more timeless truth of the subject, its past and future giving rich meaning to its present. I rejoice when a viewer has the same glimpse of recognition and enlightenment that comes from momentarily suspending "real time" to enjoy a timeless moment.
My painting is able to bring most people another step or so closer to the message the subject has to offer, about the meaning something can have. My watercolors give a view that someone walking down a dusty road may not have noticed before, allowing the subject to speak through the picture. I am drawn to my subjects emotionally. There's something in them that often isn't apparent, like a secret garden, or an old building with a history.
The world I see contains objects and beings with a spirit. As an artist, I feel connected to the spirit of a place. I aim to share what the subject has to communicate that needs to be captured from the invisible world. What I paint is not an imaginary world; but it is often invisible. And it's more real than a photograph.
My paintings are meant to give a moment of joy, to suggest positive potential. I paint what interests me, with humor or thoughtfulness, excitement or calm, but always with reverence and always in the spirit of dialogue. Communicating with the viewer, sharing these momentary, elusive joys that surround all of us, and everything; it is almost the sharing of a soul, a window into another world.
I paint to share with the viewer those moments when the world divulges its spirit, the timelessness of the subject, to involve the viewer in feeling this everlasting present. Hopefully when people look at my paintings, they pause for a minute in the moment of that painting.
And there we are. This was a moment of my perception, and I'm sharing with you, the viewer, the audience. And hopefully, if it's effective, then you've joined me in what I see and what the subject offers. We begin to share the calm, we begin to share the soul of the thing.
When my painting successfully communicates the feeling or that thought or that moment, it is a link. If someone owns that painting, it is a linkage, the only one. That is all there is, and that linkage indicates the spiritual aspect of life, the transience, the uniqueness of each moment, of our uniqueness. Real art, an original painting, is something magic.
I have not authorized reproductions of my paintings, except for my book. Each work is available only as an original, providing a direct connection, through my eye, from the subject to the person touched by that painting.