Kenny Harris (1974) has been a fixture in the Los Angeles art scene since arriving in Venice Beach in 2001. He has made a career out of describing his environment both at home and abroad. He has traveled around the world depicting subject matter both grand and mundane. Drawn to quiet subjects, his muted palette and spare spaces evoke a calming energy.
Travel is a constant pull for this artist, and he has made bodies of work focused on Central America, South America, Italy, France, Cuba, Turkey, China, as well as the US and his backyard of Venice Beach. He borrows from both modernism and classicism to achieve a naturalistic style full of grace balanced with formalism and urgency. Classical motifs are cropped with a modern eye; rendered forms are contrasted with palette knife scrapes and impasto.
During college, a semester abroad in Florence was a formative time for him, studying Renaissance Art History and classical figure drawing at the atelier of Charles Cecil. He copied drawings at the Gabinetto in the Uffizi and drew in the churches. Later he developed his tonal palette while studying under Frank Mason at The Art Students' League of New York. More recently he earned his MFA at Laguna College of Art + Design focusing on portraiture.
Kenny is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Laguna College of Art + Design and was awarded the prestigious Elizabeth Greenshields Grant in 2016.