At first glance, California artist Steven Harrington’s latest exhibition, Magic Hour, is an over-the-top world of poppy colors, wild characters, and psychedelic dreams. For many viewers this first glance will be enough. It’s a fun, immersive world of paintings, drawings, and sculptures that will compel and delight. But look a little deeper and viewers might find something more—further contemplation on the artist’s lifelong exploration of balance, nature, musings on creative evolution, personification of the subconscious, and a little bit of chaos encroaching upon this happy, colorful world.
Magic Hour is a journey through the last few years of the artist’s life—vibrant encapsulations of personal moments that also translate to simple themes all viewers can connect to. Just as the magic hour straddles time between day and night, these works walk the line between lighthearted playfulness and something a bit more nuanced, image for the sake of image and icons that inspire narrative. “At the end of the day,” Steven Harrington says, “it’s about sitting down in front of a piece of paper and freely exploring.” Bold, flat colors, abstract hints of nostalgia, and familiar yet surprising forms all invite the viewer in. What happens then is anyone’s guess.
Magic Hour is an exciting evolution of Harrington’s pop aesthetic. With two paintings that together create a mural-like piece spanning 16 feet and reaching 8-feet high, and a series of 5-foot-by-5-foot paintings, these works are the largest scale pieces he’s exhibited to date. Harrington likens the paintings’ flat colors and bold black lines to oversized animation cells, but the vibrant hues and simple shapes belie the work’s complexity. Each piece is painstakingly crafted, every color intentionally created and flattened with layers upon layers of paint and precision.
As eye-catching as the colors are, the pieces without them are just as intriguing. For the first time Harrington has scaled back his Technicolor vision to explore in black and white—what does this world look like when the pigment is removed? He pares down his palette even further, with a series of pieces that incorporate the textured, natural canvas as a major component of the paintings. These works also act as character studies, Harrington visually playing with the form and function of some of his most iconic figures.
The artist is also treading into the realm of abstraction, with several paintings that put into practice the idea that nothing is too precious, even as the process of “messing them up” is painstakingly perfected. Swirls and scribbles obscuring an otherwise “finished” painting add another visual layer, and an even greater narrative dimension.
Keen to not only explore the creative process in the studio, for the first time ever Harrington is putting the work’s evolution itself on display with a number of sketches, pencil drawings, and pen-to-paper explorations included in the exhibit. Hanging early iterations along with the realized paintings is a subtle nod to the “old way” of doing things, a contrast to the shifts toward technology in the art world at large. Featuring them is also an invitation to the viewer to experience the journey: Here we are, at the very beginning; this is where it starts. And here we are, together at the end.
This exhibition is generously supported by Nike. Nike and Harrington have partnered to present a new, small capsule collection of clothing and footwear, the latest in a years-long collaboration. The launch of sneakers and apparel, all featuring Harrington’s unmistakable designs, will coincide with the showing of Magic Hour.
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