Michael Harrison

Michael Harrison was born in 1961 in Auckland, New Zealand.

He studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, graduating in 1997 with a Master’s degree. He worked as a part-time senior tutor there from 1995 to 1998 before becoming a full-time artist. Since 1987 he has exhibited regularly at galleries throughout New Zealand and Australia.

His light, ethereal works convey a beguiling sense of intimacy, developing his own personal iconography which draws on a wide range of influences. He gradually builds each painting using layers of light watercolour wash and subtle tonal modelling. His delicate compositions of people and animals highlight the importance of relationships, the desire for contact, both physical and emotional and the loneliness of its absence.

Harrison's works have pencilled columns of dates on the back, some spanning almost a decade, in a meticulous record of the days he spent working on each painting.

His works are held in all major institutional New Zealand collections.