Sabrina Ward Harrison is a 45 year old Artist and author, born in Canada. Harrison has currently published 5 books of her journals, the books were ways for her to distribute her work, a unique way instead of selling prints. Her work appears effortless and raw, allowing her text to flow onto the pages she paints and details with imagery and journal-like drawings.
Her first published work, named Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself, has inspired my recent work. Made at 23, Harrison discusses how women grow into contradictory societal norms of femininity. Her honesty and raw approach to the work made her voice stronger and inspired a generation of women, including me.
Pages from the book:
The work is washed with colour, image components such as film negatives and polaroids placed on top. Drawn together with small doodles and paintings alongside written texts, sharing an intimate message to the audience. I remember reading this book around the age of 16 and becoming so inspired to write and to document things, I even had one of my own journals at one point inspired by this work.
I am inspired to carry these ideals into my work, to connect my past and current work together with similar ideas but a new way of presenting. Although this work has been considered to be journal work, I find it interesting to question whether their intimacy would be better placed in frames, or hung for everyone to see. I believe that there is a time and place for work to be private, but becoming enlightened and making peace with oneself deserves to be shown.
I always found her work to be something of a motivator for me, then and now, I am not surprised I have re-found my love for her work even after this time. I believe I could begin writing more openly, in a way which is more organic as opposed to the last project where I wrote with text digitally. Now I am able to use the scanners at university and have more facilities to use. I could also start experimenting with physical collage pieces too now I have proper access to printers.
Some more work from the artist:
Emily Ryder 