Johanna Harmon | Idyllic Visions

Time in seclusion has brought reflective depth to Johanna Harmon’s paintings

By Norman Kolpas

To a casual observer, the day’s outing for two women and a toddler would have looked quite ordinary. They drove west from Denver to the Rocky Mountain foothills. Through aspen woodlands, the trio strolled leafy paths to a stream and enjoyed a picnic. As the afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, the younger woman picked up her daughter and posed for photographs that the other woman took of the idyllic scene, with the little girl holding a dream catcher her mother had bought on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota the year before her daughter was born.

In fact, this excursion in the early summer of 2021 represented a significant milestone for the photographer. Figurative artist Johanna Harmon, a multiple-award-winning member of the Oil Painters of America and the Portrait Society of America, had been living for almost a year and a half under pandemic restrictions with her husband in a southern suburb of Denver. “Every day, twice a day, I would go for walks on nearby trails,” she says. “But for all that time, I wasn’t able to work closely with models.”

Instead, during a professional pause that felt “both enriching and extremely disruptive,” Harmon spent most of her time studying and experimenting. She took online art courses in human anatomy. Scrutinizing the works of old master painters, she re-envisioned them as notan sketches, a Japanese term for reducing an image down to just three black-and-white values—dark, light, and halftone—that focus on its overall composition. And she regularly created plein-air paintings, gaining an even stronger sense of how best to capture the natural settings in many of her figurative works.

“Over the years, my road had begun to feel a little narrow,” notes Harmon of the self-assessment that came with her seclusion. “I spent the time dismantling what might have become repetitious behavior, breaking away and just painting more freely.”

And so, when she finally reconnected in July with a longtime favorite model—not to mention the woman’s daughter, at whose birth Harmon had assisted—it felt as if a painting of singular power might result. Back home in her studio, Harmon edited her photographs and selected the reference image she favored. On her primed canvas, she blocked in the primary shapes in a wash of dark oils. Then gradually, over several weeks, she built the scene from dark to light in vibrantly chromatic blues, yellows, and reds that capture the moody woodlands, the patches of sunlight, the patterns on the mother’s dress, and the sinews, beads, and feathers of the dream catcher in the little girl’s hand. Entitled DREAM KEEPER, the painting, which is featured in Harmon’s new show at McLarry Fine Art in Santa Fe, creates a sense of enchantment and intimacy that speaks directly to the deep natural connection between mother and child.

Harmon’s mastery of oil painting should not be taken as the culmination of her 20-plus years as a full-time painter, but rather as the latest stage in a dedication to fine art going back more than twice that long. Born in Milwaukee but raised mostly in Tempe, AZ, she recalls “having a lot of free time to myself and sitting out on our front porch at the age of 7, drawing the palm trees, trying to represent what I saw with pencil and paper.”

In high school, Harmon’s talent led her to take Advanced Placement art classes. In her spare time, she also earned a cosmetology license, going on after graduation to work at salons and spas while taking community college classes, including life drawing, and doing some painting in her spare time. “Ultimately, though, I wanted something more creative in my life,” she says.

By her mid-20s, she was working as a project coordinator at a Tempe design firm, “a really incredible company that did commercial and residential interiors, sales offices, exhibits, and signage. It was wonderful to be around such creative energy,” she remembers. One designer there, who was also a fine artist, suggested she check out the Scottsdale Artists’ School, which since 1983 has offered a wide range of classes taught by top professional artists. “I finally made my way over there,” she recalls. “And when I opened the door, I felt like I had found the answer to everything.”

Harmon signed up for a life-drawing class taught by artist and graphic designer Luis Tomás Estrada and also attended open-studio sessions “whenever I could squeeze in a night.” Then she went on to painting classes with figurative artists Nancy Chaboun and Robert Lemler. Eventually, she took in other artists’ workshops, including one at the Fechin Art Institute in Taos with Wisconsin-based Daniel Gerhartz. “I saw an image of one of his paintings and thought, I’ve got to study with this guy,” she says. “His poetic, loose, free-spirited style and the beautiful way he lit his subjects just moved me.”

That course marked a watershed moment for Harmon. “Dan went for the heart of what he saw, and tried to be as honest and faithful to it as he could be. And that authenticity inspired me,” she relates. At one point in his workshop, Gerhartz stopped beside her easel. “He shook my hand and said, ‘Great job! You’ve achieved it!’ And even now….” Harmon trails off, unexpectedly moved to tears by the memory.

On another occasion, she took a weeklong workshop with Neil Boyle, a celebrated figurative painter who passed away in 2006. “He was so delightful, and just made painting fun,” Harmon says. During one session, she vividly remembers, “he looked at the portrait I was painting and comically said, ‘Wow! You’re doing pretty good. So don’t screw it up!’”

More and more, Harmon yearned to paint full time. The moment for that change finally arrived in the autumn of 2000, when she and her husband, Steven—they’ll celebrate their 25th anniversary this coming April—moved to Denver. “We told ourselves we’d give it a year and see how it goes,” she says.

Early the next year, while exploring the city’s Cherry Creek North neighborhood, the couple came across the well-respected Merrill Johnson Gallery. “We walked in, and I struck up a conversation with the director and asked for some feedback on my work. She said she’d love to see what I was doing,” Harmon says. The next weekend, they returned with a group of 10 paintings. “And they offered me representation on the spot. I was in shock. I had no idea I would be hanging with artists like Dan Sprick, Ron Hicks, Ray Knaub. I was overwhelmingly grateful.” She continued showing there for about three years, until the gallery closed. Of course, other top representation also came along.

Meanwhile, Harmon began earning professional accolades, starting with being juried into a 2001 regional exhibition of the Oil Painters of America, then going on two years later to win an Award of Excellence at its National Juried Exhibition. That same organization presented her with its Gold Medal at the 2007 national show, and then in 2013—the same year she was recognized as an OPA signature member—Harmon also became the first artist to win the Gold Medal twice. “The first time it was announced, I was sitting with C.W. Mundy, a painter who had taught me a lot in a workshop I took with him, and I cried like a baby,” she says. “The second time, I sat next to C.W. again, and I told him, ‘I’m not going to cry.’ It was a fun moment.”

Deeply significant moments in her personal life also occurred during the early years of her professional painting career. Raised from the age of 3 by a single mom, and having known only her stepfather, the dad of her two older brothers, Harmon finally connected with her biological father for the first time in 2006. He was in hospice care suffering from Alzheimer’s but knew that Johanna was his daughter and expressed warm love for her before he died six months later. Meanwhile, she also developed a loving relationship with her late father’s wife, “this phenomenal, positive spirit, the most exceptional human I’ve ever known.”

During the last eight years of her own life, she spoke with Harmon about John, an older half-brother the artist had never known about, himself a creative soul and artist who had passed away in 2004. Harmon inherited a box of John’s favorite things, including a beautiful emerald-green-and-blue kimono that she featured in her 2016 painting GOLDEN ORCHIDS, which won first place in the noncommissioned portrait category in that year’s Members Only Competition of the Portrait Society of America.

Harmon admits that all the revelations, and losses, of the past decade or so have been a lot to process. “I still feel in the throes of it, because they all feel very alive to me in this world,” she says of her departed family members. Nonetheless, she adds, “I feel very supported by them, and that gives deep meaning to what I do.” Add the reflection and study that have come during the past two years, plus the renewed energy of reconnecting with her portrait subjects, and Harmon eagerly anticipates getting back to doing the work she loves. “I genuinely look forward to the adventure before me,” she says, “and I’m going to try my best to honor whatever comes my way.”

representation
McLarry Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM; Newbury Fine Arts, Boston, MA; www.johannaharmon.com.

This story appeared in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.