Untitled (Houses in a Landscape), 1977

Private Collection, Toronto By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto

The distinctive bold colours and highly personal visual vocabulary of the work of Ted Harrison is instantly recognizable. His paintings have been described as "studied naivete" as, though academically-trained as an artist, Harrison sought to find immediacy and joy in his work often associated with the work of 'naive' or untrained artists. The scale and grandeur of Northern Canada initially proved a difficult subject for an artist versed in the gentle English countryside. However, Harrison found that through simplification of the forms he was able to strip back the superfluous elements and interpret his new surroundings.  This work displays the artist's early technique of outlining the forms in bold black lines. Harrison was inspired by the work of the Maori people in New Zealand. He had occasion to study Maori art and design when he taught in New Zealand for two years. In 1981, two years after this picture was created, Harrison adapted his outlining technique and shifted from black to colourful line work. Outlining is a distinctive aspect of Harrison's work, but it is the pure matte colours on which viewers most often comment. The artist eschewed shading and gradation for arbitrary colours that pop off the canvas. However, notably, the sky is expressive of what lay before him. Through his use of colour, Harrison blended abstraction and reality and created something that was definitively his own.