Rain Harris earned her BFA in Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Ohio State University, Columbus. She is an alum of The Clay Studio Resident Artist Program. Her work is included in national and international collections, including: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Danmarks Keramikmuseum, Denmark; Icheon World Ceramic Center Museum, Korea; International Museum of Ceramics, Italy; and the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, TX; among others.
Harris examines overconsumption, excess and class, through color, pattern and decoration. She uses motifs from the history of decorative arts and combines incongruous elements to create work that highlights decorative eclecticism to a point of overindulgence. This allows the work to transcend itself, and find a new coherence.
"While my work ranges in scale from dainty diminutive pedestal objects to large sprawling installations, there is a common thread that runs through these seemingly disparate bodies of work. My ideas are spurred by an analytical interest in the ironies associated with excess and class, which become interpreted visually through color, pattern and decoration. I freely borrow stylistic embellishments and motifs from the decorative arts and combine incongruous elements to create work that pushes decorative eclecticism to a point of excessive overindulgence. This allows the work to transcend itself, re-compose itself and find a new coherence.
I look to the contradictions that reside between the tasteful and the tawdry and I create arguably elegant objects and installations that oscillate between good and bad taste. I ask if an ugly object can be in “good taste?” Also, can a beautiful object also be a tasteless object? Frequently, I integrate lowbrow materials into my work to create “refined” work that teeters on the edge of ironic gaudiness. At other times I incorporate jarring color combinations and allow the work to indulge itself and brazenly flaunt it tastelessness."
