Time and transition in the work of Lee Harrop
On 10 December 2019 Lee Harrop returned pieces from her work Still Lives (2019) to the Northern Territory Core Library in Darwin, thereby taking them out of circulation. For Harrop, rather than closing down the meanings of these works, this moment represented a vital stage, part of the circle of life for artwork, rock, and ultimately the very matter of the universe. Harrop works with drill core rock samples, often drawn from core libraries. Respect for the material defines every stage of the artistic process. Harrop’s statement that she wants “the value of the rock itself to be recognised” is just one aspect of a practice that rejects the maintenance of hierarchies between artist and material, including that between rock and inscribed text, the other major component of the work.
