{"id":130164,"date":"2025-08-08T22:29:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T22:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130164\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T22:29:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T22:29:13","slug":"experimenting-with-color-and-reflection-kenny-harris-brews-beautiful-still-lifes-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130164\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimenting with Color and Reflection, Kenny Harris Brews Beautiful Still Lifes \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Moka_pot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">moka pot<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>For Venice, California-based artist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kenny-harris.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kenny Harris<\/a>, 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\u2019s surface, sometimes blurring the boundary between the object and its surroundings.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2553\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-7.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker reflecting the decorative tile surface it sits on, against a blue background\" class=\"wp-image-460035\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI find delight in searching for harmonies, lost edges, and texture variation,\u201d the artist says. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A solo show of Harris\u2019s work titled Passage opens on September 6 at Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam, and he\u2019s currently working toward another show in early 2026 at Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles. Explore more work on the artist\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kenny-harris.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">website<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/kennyharrispaintings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2626\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-4.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker set against a blue background\" class=\"wp-image-460032\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"3003\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-5.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker sitting next to a lemon, on a blue surface, against a pink background\" class=\"wp-image-460033\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2667\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-2.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker reflecting red and green from the surface it sits on\" class=\"wp-image-460030\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2513\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-6.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker reflecting the red and white striped surface it sits on, against a blue background\" class=\"wp-image-460034\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1982\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-3.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker reflecting the chartreuse and green surface that it sits on\" class=\"wp-image-460031\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/harris-1.jpg\" alt=\"an oil painting of a moka coffee maker reflecting the blue and cream-colored surface that it sits on\" class=\"wp-image-460029\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Do stories and artists like this matter to you?<\/strong> Become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/members\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"118516\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colossal Member<\/a> now, and support independent arts publishing.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hide advertising<\/li>\n<li>Save your favorite articles<\/li>\n<li>Get 15% off in the <a href=\"https:\/\/colossal.shop\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colossal Shop<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Receive members-only newsletter<\/li>\n<li>Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1933, Alfonso Bialetti and his son Renato began to market an aluminum contraption for brewing coffee that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,15713,9243,1033,171,79277,8143,1069,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-130164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-coffee","11":"tag-color","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-kenny-harris","15":"tag-light","16":"tag-painting","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114995512278103232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}