DaeshaDevónHarris
Daesha Devón Harris is a Saratoga Springs, New York
native, artist and photographer who has spent time in Buffalo,
NY and San Francisco, CA. Narratives are central to Harris’
art practice and the stories that inspire her work have both
local origins and that of the greater African diaspora.
Her earliest mentor was her Great Uncle, Joseph Daniels,
a self-taught artist and accomplished painter from whom
she received painting instruction as a young child. She
credits her parents for always fostering her creativity and
fueling her interest in stories and history, but most importantly
for teaching her the importance of community. Both her multi-
cultural family and the unexpected death of her young father
have greatly shaped her life. She holds a BFA in Studio
Art from the College of Saint Rose and a MFA in Visual Art
from The University at Buffalo. She is a member of various
organizations and plays an active role in her community
as a youth advocate, social activist and cultural history
preservationist. Harris is an award-winning artist that has
been featured in numerous exhibitions across New York
State as well in Philadelphia, PA, Louisville, CO, and beyond.
She is also an avid fisherman and hobbyist gardener.
Just Beyond the River
da e s ha de v o n h a rri s .c o m
Quite simply family, history and landscape are three interconnected
and continual sources of inspiration to me. Growing up my greatest joy
was exploring both the urban and pastoral landscape of my immediate
and extended home. These outings allowed me to not only experience
familial traditions connected to the landscape but also to learn personal
and cultural history. The stories that my family told entranced me and
compelled me to seek out the missing stories- those untold and those
of forgotten kinfolk. In my work I enjoy combining elements from both
shared narratives and those that are specific to myself.
The selected pieces from my “Just Beyond the River” series are inspired by
Negro Folklore, Slave Narratives and Harlem Renaissance poetry. This work
aims to illuminate America’s aged but enduring cultural, historical and societal
ideologies regarding race, while reiterating the central narrative that emerges
from the referenced memoirs - the ongoing struggle for Freedom. By using
elements from these stories in combination with unidentified historical
images and aquatic landscapes this work claims the significant contributions
and sacrifices that our ancestors gave civilization in both life and in death
and acknowledges the burden of social constructs that to this day continue to
threaten people of color.
This series is about the Black experience that is deeply connected to the
landscape, the idea of home and it’s intersections with water. Water becomes
symbolic of Freedom whether it is in this world or the next and at the same
time is evidence of social and cultural boundaries. Water has to be crossed
on the journey to Freedom.
My process always begins with extensive amounts of research, collecting
stories, references, imagery, memorabilia etc. In this series I have
incorporated a personal collection of unidentified carte de visites and cabinet
card portraits. After creating a transparent version of a specific portrait, I then
take the transparency to a local body of water, collect flora from the area,
place the transparency in the water and arrange an aquatic still-life which I then
photograph. The resulting image with a layered visual effect is in fact a single
frame. The locations where each of the images are shot are all waters in and
around my home region, and because of the locality, hold meaningful
associations both personally and historically. The trail begins in my hometown
of Saratoga and ends North at Timbuctoo (the revolutionary free Black
settlement in North Elba, NY).
The thought of “home” has always been a comfort and an inspiration to me:
the concept, people, places, history and the actual physical structure. My
work explores this theme as it relates to the African American experience,
1 2 and
N u the
e v issues
a L u z that encompasses- notably community, race and class.
Daesha Devón Harris . Break me my bounds, and let me fly, Just Beyond The River, A Folk Tale Series . 2015
Nueva Luz 13