New Acquisitions

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/2024

Emma Prempeh’s practice delves into the concepts of distant memories. The starting point to her work is the matter of blackness – the tonal properties of the colour establishes the ground to her paintings and provides a cinematic basis to invoke memories of events, people, and places.

Her works explore questions of what it is it like to feel in-between; where we decide what is our home and how this is explored or experienced by individuals across the African diasporic plane and those who cross and interweave within it.

Family and generational continuity is often the subject of Prempeh’s paintings, relational ties are explored through the depiction of her mother and grandma and their experiences. It’s the People That Make a Home presents a sense of warmth and features her grandma sharing photographs. The cat in the background is totemistic of Prempeh’s presence and a symbol of rest.

Prempeh sees her grandma’s home as a place of refuge and comfort with her home being an expression of her cultural identity.1936 portrays the feet of Prempeh’s grandma emphasising Prempeh’s roots in the UK due to her grandma’s movement to Britain.

The Harris has relatively few works by women artists, particularly figurative paintings which explore experiences of identity, representations of diversity and intergenerational family life. It’s the People That Make a Home and 1936 are important additions to the collection, they will form part of a major redisplay when the Harris reopens in 2025. With particular focus on narratives that explore identity, heritage and a sense of belonging the Harris has an ongoing commitment to working with local communities including Preston’s Windrush generation and descendants.

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/2024

Emma Prempeh’s practice delves into the concepts of distant memories. The starting point to her work is the matter of blackness – the tonal properties of the colour establishes the ground to her paintings and provides a cinematic basis to invoke memories of events, people, and places.

Her works explore questions of what it is it like to feel in-between; where we decide what is our home and how this is explored or experienced by individuals across the African diasporic plane and those who cross and interweave within it.

Family and generational continuity is often the subject of Prempeh’s paintings, relational ties are explored through the depiction of her mother and grandma and their experiences. It’s the People That Make a Home presents a sense of warmth and features her grandma sharing photographs. The cat in the background is totemistic of Prempeh’s presence and a symbol of rest.

Prempeh sees her grandma’s home as a place of refuge and comfort with her home being an expression of her cultural identity.1936 portrays the feet of Prempeh’s grandma emphasising Prempeh’s roots in the UK due to her grandma’s movement to Britain.

The Harris has relatively few works by women artists, particularly figurative paintings which explore experiences of identity, representations of diversity and intergenerational family life. It’s the People That Make a Home and 1936 are important additions to the collection, they will form part of a major redisplay when the Harris reopens in 2025. With particular focus on narratives that explore identity, heritage and a sense of belonging the Harris has an ongoing commitment to working with local communities including Preston’s Windrush generation and descendants.

Archival pigment print, 26.7 x 40 cm. Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2021/22

Shalini, Rudi, Sunil, Léo, and Stanley, was taken in an apartment in Montreal that he shared with his sister and partner, both of whom feature in the image.

The two photographs show the people he was closest to: his biological family on the one hand and his “chosen family” of friends and lovers he made through the gay liberation movement in Montreal at the time.

These photographs form part of a new collection of works that explore the many facets of family life, chosen because of your feedback through the Harris Your Place project.

Archival pigment print, 35.6 x 53.3 cm. Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2021/22

Sunil Gupta works as a photographer, writer and curator, seeking to promote a greater understanding of questions regarding representation, sexuality, access and cultural difference. His career, which spans four decades, has been either community-based, as he photographed other members of the queer community, or introspective, as he documented his medical journey after being diagnosed as HIV+.

Gupta uses his own lived experiences of race, migration and queer identity as a point of departure for photographic projects. Sunil and His Parents (Ram & Penny) is a portrait of the artist with his mother and father. His parents hold each other while he stands slightly apart.

Acrylic and lacquer on board, 89 x 125 cm. Credit: Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2021/22

Hetain Patel aims to challenge assumptions about how we look and where we come from. As a child and teenager, he was greatly inspired by comic book heroes. This painting comes from a body of work that grew out of a robbery that his grandmother (called Baa, which means ‘mother’ in Gujarati) suffered in 2015, during which her gold jewellery was forced from her wrists. Patel’s deeply personal paintings ‘seek to retrieve Baa’s gold’, which for the artist is a metaphor for everything that has been taken from his family via the systematic racism experienced in the UK since his birth and before.

This painting forms part of a new collection of works that explore the many facets of family life, chosen because of your feedback through the Harris Your Place project.

One of two woven Himroo textiles, created on a dark background with silver woven pattern. This textile was woven in India using restored Himroo textile weaving looms.

Made by Loom Katha, a weaving collective ran by Arushi Chowdhury Khana.

One of two woven Himroo textiles, created on a light background with pink woven pattern. This textile was woven in India using restored Himroo textile weaving looms.

Made by Loom Katha, a weaving collective ran by Arushi Chowdhury Khana.

Copyright: Jacqueline Bishop. Courtesy the artist. Photography by Simon Critchley.

The Harris is thrilled to announce a new acquisition to our collection, presented by Contemporary Art Society. Jacqueline Bishop’s interdisciplinary masterpiece, ‘Fauna’, sheds light on overlooked narratives of enslaved women in Caribbean society. Commissioned by The Harris, this evocative ceramic work intertwines botanical elements with maternal themes, unveiling poignant stories of resilience. Displaying alongside historical pieces, ‘Fauna’ sparks dialogues on the global history of tea and colonialism. Don’t miss its unveiling in Spring 2025!

Presented by Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2023/24.

This Saree Suit designed by Felix Roche, BA Fashion Design student at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire), showed as part of his graduate collection ‘Saree Not Sorry’, June 2023. Felix is from London and is of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage. This design symbolises a mixture of eastern and western cultures and traditional tailoring with traditional South Asian dress.

Felix achieved this through using knots on the sleeves to symbolise the marriage of both his cultures but also to symbolise the Hindu wedding tradition of tying the newlyweds garments together – typically the bride’s veil and the groom’s sash. Alongside combining the fluidity of draping and pleating from traditional sarees to a Western suit, Felix hopes to emasculate the common perception attached to it and instead allow the garments to exist as gender-neutral pieces.