Séan Alonzo Harris
NYC #9, SéanAlonzo Harris
Séan Alonzo Harris is a professional editorial, commercial and fine art photographer concentrating on narrative and environmental portraiture. Over the past 25 years, Séan’s work is featured in a range of national publications, advertising campaigns, and exhibitions. In these varied contexts, Séan’s work focuses on human experience and identity and examines how individuals visualize themselves and how they are portrayed. Séan’s images bear witness to often invisible or overlooked members of our communities, and creates portraits that provide a counter image and narrative of self-worth and personal agency.
His work is published in Atlantic Magazine, the Paris Review, Boston Magazine, Down East, Portland Magazine, Maine Home and Design, Photo District News Rising Star feature, Maine Magazine, Harvard University Magazine, Ralph Lauren magazine, Mother Jones, Adweek, Consumer Reports, Teaching Tolerance, and USA Today.
Harris’ clients include Jackson Laboratory, J.P.Morgan Chase, Possible Health/ Nepal, Atlantic Rethink, Cathay Pacific Airways /Hong Kong, Coastal Enterprises Inc., Norway Savings Bank, Bangor Savings Bank, LL Bean, York Community College, Maine College of Art, CDM Communications, Museum of African Culture, Standard Baking Company, The Cedars Retirement Community, Downeast Energy, Camp Sunshine, Colby College.
Harris has received critical acclaim for his fine artwork. Sean’s most recent solo exhibition at the Colby College Museum of Art, I Am Not A Stranger, was developed in collaboration with Waterville Creates and supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. I Am Not A Stranger is a series of 58 portraits of community members that were displayed in the Colby Museum as well as sixteen different locations across the city of Waterville. The project includes a combination of photographic portraits and participant interviews, and captures personal histories, make connections, and create channels for telling untold stories.
Séan was also awarded a Kindling Fund grant from Space Gallery and the Warhol Foundation, for his project Visual Tensions. This collaborative photographic project and community dialog pairs people of color with members of law enforcement. Harris will create photographic portraits as a means to confront and question cultural and racial assumptions, stereotypes and fears. His work is also part of the celebrated traveling exhibition, Going Forward, Looking Back, practicing historical processes in the 21st century. He has also developed three significant shows, VanDerZee On My Mind in 1999, featuring images of African Americans in Maine, sponsored by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council and The Families Of Maine Documentary Photography Project, starting with A Lebanese Family In Waterville, in 2003, and Recollection; Green Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in 2005. By 2003, the 121st Maine legislature had presented him with a formal proclamation of recognition for his work as a photographer. Harris’s work was included in 150 Years of Photography in Maine and selected for Biennial Juried Exhibition at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and received honorable mention in 2000. His work was also part of the multi-media production If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride at the Portland Museum of Art, featuring video, dance, text, and photography. Sean’s work was also included in the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Tenth Annual Exhibition. Harris’s work is included in the books Visible Black History, The First Chronicle of Its People and Portland Through the Lens. Harris has also participated in several community-based collaborations, and artist in residencies in Maine Schools and youth programs. He has partnered with VSA Arts of Maine, The Edge Youth Program, Denmark Arts Center, Tim Rollins K.O.S. and Maine College of Art.
He has received several awards and grants for his work including, Good Idea Grant and Arts in the Capital Program, from the Maine Arts Commission, the Broderson Bronze Award, and the VanDerZee Black Heritage Award, from the University of Lowell. Séan was selected as one of the 60 most collectible artists in Maine and featured in Maine Home and Design magazine.
Harris graduated from the Art Institute of Boston and studied photography in Viterbo, Italy and at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine.
Education
Art Institute of Boston, MA
Maine Media Workshops, Rockland, ME
L’Accademia De Belle Art, Viterbo, Italy
Grants & Awards
2017 - Kindling Fund Grant
2016 - Best of the Best Photographer, One Eyeland
2015 - Our Favorite Photos of 2015, DownEast Magazine
2015 - Silver Award Arts & Culture, Portrait Photography, International Regional Magazine Awards
2014 - Editor’s Pick, DownEast Magazine
2006 - Good Idea Grant, Maine Arts Commission
2003 - Official Proclamation from the legislature of the State of Maine
2003 - Broderson Award
1999 & 2000 - Best of Portland, Best Photographer, Casco Bay Weekly, Portland, ME
1986 & 1987 - James VanDerzee Award, University of Lowell, Lowell, MA
Museums & Public Collections
David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora
The Telling Room
Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church
Maine Humanities Council
University of Southern Maine African American Archives
Maine College of Art, Creative Community Partnerships Program
Solo Exhibitions
2019 - institute of Contemporary Art, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME, Visual Tensions
2018 - PhoPa Gallery, Portland, ME, Voices in Our Midst
2015 - Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, ME, Huzzah! Play Ball Like It’s 1861
2014 - Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, ME, Fruitful
2014 - Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, ME, Catch and Release
2011 - Frontier Gallery, Brunswick, ME, Sean Harris New Selected Portraits
2009 - Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, ME, Selected Platinum and Palladium Prints
2008 - Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, ME, Selected Portraits
2008 - The Museum of African Culture, Portland, ME, Present
2005 - University of New England, Biddeford, ME, Recollection
2003, 2002 - Arts in the Capitol Program, Blaine House, Augusta, ME, and Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME A Lebanese Family in Waterville, Families of Maine Documentary Photo Project, Part 1
2000 - Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, If Wishes Were Horses Beggars Would Ride
