In the beginning there was…Ian Harris, (IFH-The Stratfordian-Ian Frederick Harris) who lives and produces a mixture of paintings in oil or acrylic, on canvas and board all from his shed or kitchen table in Stratford upon Avon UK.
Ian is sometimes called an Outsider artist or even Naive. That’s up to you. Ian doesn’t care.
The Stratfordian is a website dedicated to showing you his work more or less as it happens.
He’s writing this new introduction piece because he keeps coming across numerous articles that guarantee him new followers to this his art website, The Stratfordian.
Apparently, he has to engage you emotionally.
Artist: Which I have to say is so bleeding obvious that this is where me and all the good advice people part company.
———————————-
I paint from the head and the heart. How else does one create?
Art is for me basically, messages. Messages that I receive unexpectedly, suddenly and at any time of the day or night. OK. You’re right. That’s weird so let me put it another way. Art to me comes in, flashes of inspiration.
I read. I watch. I engage on many different levels. I even dream. And after quite a bit of that, more likely than not, an image pops into my brain. And it’s that image that cries out to be painted.
So…to be blunt…
MY IMAGE. MY MEANING.
But.
I actually do not want the picture I have just painted to mean ONE THING. Especially when that ONE THING appertains only to me.
How dull. How unexciting is that? I want more than that. I want my work to live.
I want my work, my painting to be a many splendored thing.
I want it to be an overly embroidered thing.
A smorgasbord of thoughts, of meanings, of interpretations.
As I said…I want my work to live.
If my work has the potential within it to mean many different things to many different people, then I have succeeded as an artist. I am a happy man.
More than anything else I want you to look at my art and be moved by it for your own reasons, not mine. I am just a conduit. Nothing more than a channel.
So…
I want you to be shocked. Surprised. Heartened. Saved. Cured even.
I want you to remember. I want my art to help you to forget. I want you to laugh. I want you to cry.
I even want you to be bloody angry if need be.
I want my art to move you in any and every direction it possibly can. Everything and anything. I want my paintings to ignite something in you. Something beyond words.
One major reaction would be enough.
I would be completely satisfied with that ONE THING you might find in my work.
The ONE THING that means so much to you.
The ONE THING that is truly unique to you.
That ONE THING that might even make you want a piece of my art to come and live with you.
Art is a powerful medium.
Art can heal.
Art can lead you to explore.
Art can boldly take you where no man or woman has gone be- (sorry got a bit carried away there).
What I am trying to say here is Art has amazing potential to do many things.
That is all.
Ian. X
P.S. If you want something else to look at there are always my opinions (side bar) —>>>>>>>>>
NOTE: If you really want to own a piece of my art but it is just out of what you can afford, please get in touch.
Here are my other pages of artwork. Just click on the green titles below.
Portraits by Ian Frederick Harris (IFH)
Abstract painting by Ian Frederick Harris