In his second solo exhibition at MKG127, Sturm und Drang (Storm and Urge), David R. Harper investigates the tension between love and rational thought. Juxtaposing platitudes and outbursts of irrationability, Harper is not privileging one over the other. Rather, he is determined to find a balance between the two, by subjecting love to four rational confines: the vitrine, the archive, the portrait and finally, the diorama. In the hopes to find a proper home for overwhelming and unresolvable feelings, Harper simply resigns to validate strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience and leaves the battle for poets.

David R. Harper received his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Harper’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions in Canada and the US, most recently in Oh, Canada at MASS MoCA, Animal Nature at the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin, and Skin at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Harper was artist in residence during the winter of 2012 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin where he completed several large scale scuptural installations that will be included in his upcoming traveling solo exhibition organized by the University of Toronto’s Doris McCarthy Gallery, the Kenderdine in Saskatoon, and the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery launching in February of 2013.