Dominic Harris
Dominic Harris has taken over the iconic Tea Room at Harrods with digital artworks that bridge history and technology in an intertwined exploration of Harris’ most important subject: the incredible phenomena of nature.
The botanical themed Georgian Tea Room at Harrods reopened last month showcasing 20 works by Dominic Harris. Inspired and challenged by the technology fuelled twenty-first century, Harris adopts certain roles – from a Victorian romanticist to a post-modern botanist – balancing fidelity to nature with a more whimsical depiction of reality in his works on view. Harris studies the growth cycles of plants and their flowering, seeing them as sentient creatures and imbuing them with personalities of their own. As a digital lepidopterist Harris is intent on cataloguing the appearance and mechanics of some of the world’s most fragile creatures.
The Harrods Tea Room, Monday - Saturday 11-7pm, Sunday 12-6pm, Harrods, Brompton Road, London
Works on View at the Harrods Tea Room
Bloomed is Harris’s study of plants, with which onlookers may subtly interact. Playing on the nature of classical still life, small movements enliven the flowers, causing them to flourish as observers pass by. Meticulously recreated through computer animations, each flower encapsulates the romanticised surrealness synonymous with Harris’s works.
The Ruffled artworks capture Harris’s fascination with presenting animals within an abstracted display as he turns his attention to the world of ornithology, creating living portrait studies of the birds about which he is most intrigued. The birds are brought to life through startlingly realistic virtual representations on screen. At first they appear to be merely posing for a portrait, but when the viewer approaches they become animated, encouraging further interaction.