Photo by: Will Gentry
Radioactive moon pies, free-range Neanderthals and tempest-tossed bull riders star in the work of satirical artist Burt Harbison, challenging the artistic eye of Oklahoma Christian University’s students during the last few weeks of the semester.
“Trailer trash, mall trash, goobers, hayseeds, etc. are reduced to convenient, theatrical types and handed over to inscrutable cosmic forces who toss them back to us latter-day vaudevilles,” Harbison’s “Artist Confession” states. “They are our sacrifices and I am a guilty executioner.”
Professor of Art and Design Michael O’Keefe runs the Oklahoma Christian Art Gallery. The art department held a gallery opening on Nov. 14.
“I chose to have Harbison because he’s got quirky, weird, fun, crazy art,” O’Keefe said. “My students can learn that it’s OK to have satire in your art. It’s not reserved for just cartoons.”
As students walked among the pieces in the gallery, each piece captivated a small collection of curious onlookers.
“I liked the expressiveness the use of color gave to each piece,” freshman Abby Bellow said. “It gave me a sort of index for the energy color can give to art. For the most part, his work gave off a positive energy that contrasted with the subject matter, making me want to see more.”
Harbison’s supernatural subjects were inspired at a young age, proving the efforts of his artistic voice as a lifelong pursuit.
“I’ve always kind of liked the ‘cult things,’” Harbison said. “I’ve been interested in Bigfoot ever since I read this story in Reader’s Digest when I was about 10 that kept me up at night. I used to have nightmares constantly and I always suppressed that. And then I dated a woman in Austin, when I was at school there, and she was really into astrology. So one day she goes, ‘Oh, you’re a Scorpio … you like the cult stuff: spooks, ghosts, and mysterious things like that.’ So I’ve been drawing UFOs and Sasquatches from there on out.”
The 13-piece set displayed in Oklahoma Christian’s Art Gallery is a retrospective collection expressing Harbison’s 20-year search for his artistic statement.
“My favorite piece in my show is the vertical one with the red pickup and the guys in Hazmat suits,” Harbison said. “I was very interested in Western art at the time when I made that one and I was getting into the theories of the wide open spaces and the battle of the rugged individual versus corporation.”
With an extensive knowledge of history in his back pocket, Harbison’s creativity in this piece displays the fallout of the government’s imposition of land for various reasons.
“The American West is instrumental in our ability as a world power,” Harbison said. “And by that I mean if it wasn’t for the western states, we would’ve had a real hard time developing atomic bombs. So many of our weapon systems were tested out there – things that do really awful things to our enemies, the stuff that make us feared. This piece is kind of the results of aboveground atomic testing, where the cows are eating radioactive scrub and the poor ranchers are being told to get lost because Uncle Sam says so.”
Complying with the wishes of his parents, Harbison got his bachelor’s and master’s degree in European history and spent three years in the Army.
Using his GI bill, he received a bachelor’s in fine arts in Studio Concentration Painting from the University of Texas at Austin. Attributing much of his artistic path to his professors there, Harbison went to graduate school at the University of Oklahoma.
“I had a couple of instructors in Austin who were pretty influential,” Harbison said. “When I started there I thought I was going to go into more of surrealism, but it always had kind of a goofy side. And I had some of these instructors who were really goofy and that validated my satirical side. That’s what steered me into the satire. Even more importantly, it showed me that it was something to be taken seriously.”
Harbison discovered soon after graduate school that creating art wouldn’t be a sole source of income for him.
“Visual art is kind of my second career,” Harbison said. “My first job out of graduate school was a design job at a buckle factory. It wasn’t a very good paying job, but I was literally designing and drawing every day. I was doing what I had trained to do. That’s where some of the inspiration came from for a lot of the artwork. If I hadn’t have gotten that job, I probably would not have been in the art field.”
After working at the buckle factory for a few years, Harbison swept the art scene in Oklahoma City.
“I wiggled my way into the Oklahoma City Art Museum, as a janitor for a year,” Harbison said. “And then – it was a heck of a promotion – I worked my way up to curator. I was there until they moved to downtown. About that same time, I started [working] at Oklahoma City University.”
When he’s not depicting the flaws in humanity through artwork, Harbison works for Oklahoma City University running the art gallery and teaching art and drawing classes.
“I don’t sell my work, so for a livelihood, I teach,” Harbison said. “I’m trying to put a new class together on satire in visual arts.”
Using oil-based paint on watercolor paper, Harbison glides the brush of creativity across the minds of his audience, causing them to look deeper into the meaning behind the unfortunate fates of his victims.
“My work is kind of an expressionistic thing,” Harbison said. “It’s inspired by anger and disgust. Art is kind of a way to get it out. If I can make it silly, I’m not as mad about it. I guess it’s kind of a purging thing for me.”
Harbison’s artwork will be displayed in the Oklahoma Christian art gallery until Jan. 17.
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