User:CUCermaics2/Rain harris

Rain Harris is an American ceramic artist. She studied at the Community College of Philadelphia, earning her Associate’s degree in 1995. She continued her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design where she received her B.F.A. . and 1997 and later earned her MFA from the Ohio State University in 2008. Rain Harris's style is clearly identifiable through her attention to detail and cosmetic decoration. Her pieces range in scale from small to large, and include intense decals and the use of non-clay materials such as feathers, lace and jewels. Harris is well known for her poison bottles adorned with feathers, jewels, and elaborate decoration. Rain Harris has an impressive list of accomplishments. She received more than six grants and fellowships ranging from 1999 to 2008. She received the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Special Opportunity Stipend in 2001, 2002, and 2004. Harris has collected multiple awards including the PEW discipline finalist in 2003, and 2006. She has participated in residencies in Pennsylvania and Denmark. Her work has been displayed locally, nationally and internationally through solo shows, museum shows, international, and selected shows. . Harris has exhibited her work widely including shows in Philadelphis, Santa Fe, Taipei, Taiwan and Frenza, Italy.

Much of her work consists of slip cast parts which she assembles. Her creative process deals with “ the process of addition and transformation, building up elemental forms to create ever more complex shapes”. .  She is well known for her poison bottles which are slip cast and assembled. These bottles are heavily decorated with decals, feathers and jewels. “She piles on surface treatments until she has pushed the poison bottles from refinement to tastelessness and then back again. There is so much going on that one can no longer read the layers individually. "They become something different," says Harris. "The vessels become so extreme that they finally come full circle and redeem themselves." Harris refers to the overall effect as biomorphic baroque, a term that weds her organic-inspired forms with decorative excess.”. In 2006 Rain Harris returned to her earlier body of work, the poison bottle series creating pieces on a much larger scale for her farewell exhibition at The Clay Studio. “Each bottle's aesthetic celebrates excess, playing with the contradictions inherent in the elegant yet tasteless object, a perfect synthesis of high art and low art. The objects succinctly comment on our narcissistic, body obsessed culture and sing the praises of decadent excess, celebrating the beautiful while at the same time questioning it.”

On her farewell exhibition she comments on her art: "I look to the contradictions that reside between the tasteful and the tawdry and I create arguably elegant objects that oscillate between good and bad taste. I integrate lowbrow craft materials such as feathers, rhinestones and beaded trim into my work to create refined objects that teeter on the edge of ironic gaudiness. I want the viewer to question their own perceptions of wealth and taste by presenting them ambiguous luxury objects that tread a thin line between refined elegance and brash tackiness." .