Dat 4744: Color and Reflection in Still Lifes & Sonali Bag.

"Resistance": brush strokes, ink.

        

  

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Experimenting with Color and Reflection, 

Brewing Beautiful Still Lifes'.

by Kenny Harris

All images © Kenny Harris

In 1933, Alfonso Bialetti and his son Renato began to market an aluminum contraption for brewing coffee that would make an indelible mark on Italian culinary culture and beyond. Called a moka pot after the Yemeni city of Mokha, the appliance is still manufactured today by the coffee equipment company Bialetti under the name Moka Express, providing a steam-powered, filterless way to make a rich brew on the stovetop.

For Venice, California-based artist Kenny Harris, the metallic, faceted surface of the iconic maker inspires an ongoing series of lovely still-life oil paintings. Exploring color and form, the artist focuses on reflections and their effects. Delicate gradients and patterns are mirrored across the pot’s surface, sometimes blurring the boundary between the object and its surroundings.

“I find delight in searching for harmonies, lost edges, and texture variation,” the artist says. “In the end, these are color experimentations in the tradition of Joseph Albers or Albert Moore: reiteration of the same forms with different color combinations. Also, I love coffee.”

A solo show of Harris’s work titled Passage opens on September 6 at Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam, and he’s currently working toward another show in early 2026 at Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles. More work on the artist’s website and Instagram.

 

  

 

A 2+ minute video, Artist, Tyrus Wong, kites, here

 

  

 

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Green Wood Hoopoe

 

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