Her works speak to all cultures

     Artists seem to share a unique quality in seeing the world as one instead of categorizing people into hundreds of different languages, cultures and appearances. Elisse Pogofsky-Harris is one such artist that is fascinated by the sameness in religions, angels, Immaculate Conception and other areas of the world that thousands of people share.  Through still life and landscapes that present the beginning of a story, the viewer is left to complete the journey as seen in their own mind.  It doesn’t matter what your nationality is because Elisse’s work speaks to them all.

     Pogofsky-Harris was but a five-year-old child when her artistic senses entered her small mind with a trip to California, where nature filled her mind with mountains and surrounding mists and clouds that was picture perfect.  At age ten, she took this vivid scene and started to paint and has never stopped.  Later, Florence, Italy presented to Elisse the opportunity to drink up the culture, the food, the architecture and the Italian art, seeing similarities in the people and their beliefs, just like us.

     When you look at her work, you almost feel a hand come across your shoulder that says, “It’s okay to go there.”  Our thoughts and blinders attached by society have so engrained in us a sense of fear in choosing our own way and seeing through our own eyes that embracing a scene and running with it seems almost a sin.  Pogofsky-Harris brings the comfort to dare and dream, take an unknown path and create your own finish. 

     Wandering into Elisse’s world will allow you to take that chance as to why the wolf is considered a spiritual guide or the where the rowboat will take you if you just get in. 

     Born in Chicago, Elisse Pogofsky-Harris graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in art.  She has exhibited around the world and currently has public collections in the Santa Fe Fine Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the University of Houston, the University of California and many others.  Public and private shows by the hundreds have taken many people to a new level of consciousness never realized before.

     “I believe the viewer can learn about himself from my paintings. My work refuses to fall into neat categories.  The narratives are sufficiently enigmatic to stir the viewer’s imagination, encourage him to make up his own stories and open the door to his own memories, thoughts, experiences, pleasures, fears, needs and desires,” says Elisse.

     A founding member of Women Beyond Borders, a board member of the Visual Arts Committee for the Ventura County Arts Council and a member of the Ojai Studio Artists, Elisse resides in Ojai, California where she continues her passion as an artist.  Visit her website at www.pogofsky-harris.com for many more examples of her work and public viewings.

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Portrait of Elisse Pogofsky-Harris-aapj library 02-2011