bathers23c
2020
18" x 28"
acrylic on canvas with tobacco stick frame

Artist David Shannon Harrison has emplaced himself firmly in the high hollers that are the headwaters of the Valley of the Tennessee.  From this inhabitation he has drilled down to tap aquifers of meaning that surface in resurgent allusions. His strata of reference embed the origins in Deep Time of images and concepts that are nonetheless framed (sometimes literally) by local materials: naiads dabbling in a local spring branch, Icarus in patched denim and wingtips.   Harrison’s dedication to and inspiration from his mountain home is not parochial but expansive: from his home at the top of the watershed he can better see that all rivers begin someplace specific, but the water comes from everywhere.  

                                                                                                                            Douglas Reichert Powell,
                                                                                                                            Columbia College Chicago                        

ragnarok portraits (jormungand, the world serpent/thor)
2018
30" x 13" x 1 1/2"
assembled drawings, graphite on paper, painted frame

portraits (sordello,dante and virgil)
2018
22" x 12"
graphite on paper

bathers 7 (robinson creek)
2019
18" x 24"
acrylic on canvas

"cripple" self portrait "as" Icarus
2018
20" x 15"
graphite on paper

bathers 17
2019
18" x 24"
acrylic on canvas with tobacco stick frame