Rodney Harris is a sculptor and printmaker. His work includes a long term collaboration with artist Valda Jackson. In 2017, Harris and Jackson won the Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture for ‘Four Brick Reliefs’ on the Peabody Estate in Clapham.
Harris has been commissioned by a wide variety of public and private organisations and his work can be seen in collections in Korea, Turkey, Europe and the US.
Harris was the Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence at Bristol University, 2015, based in The School of Earth Sciences. During the residency, he produced a contemporary interpretation of the first geological map of Britain, made by William Smith in 1815. [link]
Following this residence, Harris became a founder of the EarthArt Gallery.
His printmaking explores the use of natural rock and minerals in unique inks. The map of the British Isles uses geological pigments made from corresponding ground-up rock samples from each area of the UK. The resulting full-scale map is a unique and surprising overview of the true colours of the British landscape. The map was featured in the Museum of Wales exhibition, ‘The Colour of the Earth – Art and the Material Landscape’ and Oriel Y Parc Gallery, St Davids, Pembrokeshire.
In 2017, Harris undertook a further fellowship at the University of Bristol titled ‘The Invisibility of the Sea’, as part of the Brigstow Institute Commission.