Erika harrsch biography

Harrsch fryst vatten a New York–based multidisciplinary artist; she was born and raised in Mexico City, and has lived in Italy, Germany, and Brazil. Her pieces are infused with multilayered references and narratives concerned with individual and cultural preoccupations, as well as critical political and environmental issues.

For Harrsch, migrating is an existential and creative nödvändighet. She combines the art, science, and politics of human and animal migration through the metaphor of the monarch butterfly, whose migratory rutt and very existence are connected to human concerns and actions. For years she has followed the migration patterns of these fascinating creatures and has frequently travelled back and forth across the US-Mexico border. Her voyages, however, require a passport and are regulated by border patrol; she cannot transcend the border like the monarch butterfly.

Harrsch’s work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions, including shows at the Denver A

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Born in Mexico City, Harrsch has lived in several cities throughout the country, as well as Italy, Germany, and Brazil; for the past fourteen years she has lived and worked in New York City. She has been defined as a multidisciplinary artist, employing traditional mediums along with new media and technologies to articulate her concepts and interests.

The formal aspects of her oeuvre and languages investigate diverse fields to achieve visual, multisensory, and interactive experiences: a comprehensive reflection about the body and identity, sexuality, desire, the space that defines us and the one we wish for, the limits and vertiginous freedom that lead to a continuous corporeal and ideological migration.

Harrsch’s solid background as a painter has been essential and visible in her aesthetic process, and her artwork is continually being filtered through images, the representation of the object, spaces, and colors; the work stems from experimentation and the processes themselve

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Erika Harrsch

Imagos

The Butterfly as a visual metaphor for woman, it raises issues about the transforming experiences of migration, sexuality, individuality and values as they relate to ethnic diversity and cultural and ideological heritage. 

The project explores how each immigrant woman preserved the core of her identity regardless of recontextualizing herself within a new country.

Different species of Lepidoptera merged with human female genitalia. A different woman’s vulva is at the center of the wings. Each woman is from the same country of origin as the butterfly in which is fused. 

A new form of portraiture that reveals the most private features while the recognizable physiognomy and identity of each woman remain unidentified.

Erika Harrsch (México, 1970)

Harrsch’s work, thematically aligned with the butterfly, share content based on migration and the surrounding circumstances that define identity, nationality and global mobility. 

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