Robert ParkeHarrison is an American photographer and artist known for his evocative and surreal imagery that blends photography, sculpture, fabrication, and performance. Born in 1968 in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, ParkeHarrison has built a career exploring themes of human struggle, environmental degradation, and the interplay between technology, nature, and humankind.
Together with his wife Shana, the ParkeHarrisons create intricate, fantastical staged photographs that are meticulously constructed and photographed using traditional film and darkroom techniques. Their work often features Robert as the protagonist figure, a lone person navigating dystopian landscapes, engaging in Sisyphean tasks, and attempting to mend the broken relationship between humans and the environment. A narrative quality runs throughout their work, combining elements of theater, sculpture, and painting. They construct elaborate sets and use a variety of techniques to create dreamlike, allegorical scenes. Their images are both haunting and hopeful, reflecting a deep concern for the state of the planet and a longing for reconnection with the natural world.
One of their most acclaimed series, “The Architect’s Brother,” was published as a monograph in 2000 and has been widely exhibited. This series encapsulates many of the themes central to their work, including environmental collapse, renewal, and the human condition. The images from this series are celebrated for their surreal beauty and poignant commentary on contemporary issues. Through five sections of photographic narratives, ParkeHarrison envisions a world laid waste by industrial exploitation, and acts as a singular Everyman, trying desperately to repair and remake a world torn asunder. Though many of the images in “The Architect’s Brother” appear bleak and hopeless, a concurrent, underlying sense of hopeful optimism runs through the monograph, reflecting on what a new world, one that is environmentally conscious of action, can be. The two ParkeHarrion lots in this sale, “Tree Symphony” (1997), and “The Sacrifice” (1997), are from the “Industrialscapes” section of the monograph.
The ParkeHarrisons’ works have been exhibited in numerous prestigious institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the George Eastman Museum. Their photographs are part of several major collections, and they have received various awards and honors for their contributions to contemporary art.
“I want to make images that have open, narrative qualities, enough to suggest ideas about human limits. I want there to be a combination of the past, juxtaposed with the modern. I use nature to symbolize the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated world, strange clouds of smog float by; there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed. Through my work I explore technology and a poetry of existence. These can be very heavy, overly didactic issues to convey in art, so I choose to portray them through a more theatrically absurd approach.” – Robert ParkeHarrison
