Bio
Ibrahim Harris is an Oregon based artist who completed his undergraduate at Towson
University and completed graduate school at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts majoring in painting. In his youth he was always enamored with art, especially after
first being introduced to it in the form of Saturday morning cartoons and comic books.
Ibrahim primarily paints in oils, and his work focuses on the meditative qualities of
painting from direct observation. He considers this act a form of mindfulness meditation.
In the summer of 2017 Ibrahim enrolled in the summer semester at the Schuler School
of Fine Arts in Baltimore, MD. And in the summer of 2018, he attended the landscape
painting school, Mount Gretna School of Fine Arts. In the summer of 2022 Ibrahim took
classes at the Art Students League in New York. He also tutored students in painting.
Ibrahim Currently teaches painting and drawing at Portland Community College.
Statement
My practice of painting from observation is spiritual, and an act of mindfulness meditation. As a ritualistic practitioner of daily sitting meditation, I find a direct relationship between the two.
My main body of work are paintings are from direct observation of the external world. No matter what I paint— landscapes, still-lifes or the figure—I allow myself to be open and flexible to the stimulus of the physical world and I choose oil paint because of its therapeutic tactile property. I may notice a poetic moment in a landscape, or I sometimes go to a thrift store where there is an abundance of random objects and let what is visually fascinating inspire me. Some objects that I gather and group together may evolve into a theme, and some I paint just for aesthetic reasons. I paint moments that have harmonizing relationships, emphasizing shape and color. I paint thinly and scrape down often with a palette knife, sometimes fragmenting edges and leaving patches of paint on the surface that register up-close, and from far away.
When painting from life, it is a meditation as I observe what I am painting and translate it into an artwork. It is a process of observing, and not judging the subject matter. It is what it is. I am inspired by the poems of Pablo Neruda, who also exalted the mundane.