Wonderland

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison’s illusive images invite us to wonder about man’s relationship with a world sleepwalking towards environmental ruin, says Stephen Whelan

Husband and wife duo, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, have been crafting their unique photographic visions together for over a decade. A series of successful group and solo shows has seen the couple refine their distinctive visual interrogations of the relationship between man, nature and technology, earning the pair an international reputation and a place in prestigious collections, including the holdings of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.

The ParkeHarrisons' images have taken on an almost mythic status among their followers, in part due to the recurring. Everyman figure that haunts their photography like a narrative anachronism, a sole figure attempting to reconnect with a tragically broken, dormant nature with thoroughly inadequate means. "Early on we were interested in performance art and the use of the self as subject," muses Shana ParkeHarrison. "Our goal was to utilize a theatrical device, or central figure as a vehicle to explore content. Over time we developed this constant protagonist as a vessel through which a viewer could explore the ideas we were presenting. There is a connection and immediacy with the rituals he performs - actions that exist as metaphorical or allegorical moments."

The couple's current collection, Counterpoint, displays a darker, more psychologically-driven state of mind and a shift of focus on to new characters who pepper the protagonist's previously sealed world. The environmental concern has grown too, with the emphasis moving from man acting upon nature, to nature working through man as conduit, often literally breaking through clothes and flesh in an explosion of latent violence. "We want our work to evoke larger implications," reveals Robert ParkeHarrison. "Exploring issues affecting the human condition - spirituality, politics and environmental concerns - continues to drive the content of our work. As we conceived the concepts for our images we tried to create a hallucinatory moment that had qualities similar to that of magic realism in literature."

In spite of the emphasis on what might be called moral imperatives, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison deny that their intention is to convey literal moral messages. "Yes, we explore various levels of the destruction of nature and the environmental crisis. But we also explore possibilities, we pose questions, and we want the viewer to consider those questions, " explains Shana, "our intention is to create uncertain and open-ended images."