In Everything For You, the first comprehensive monograph on the work of Hilary Harkness, readers are invited into the intricate and often provocative world the artist has painstakingly built through her meticulously crafted paintings. Best known for her unapologetic portrayal of power dynamics, Harkness’s work delves into the complex intersection of sex, race, class, and historical events, offering a sharp lens through which to examine human behavior and social systems.
The book, heavily illustrated and enriched by essays from Lynne Tillman and Dr. Ashley Jackson, takes a deep dive into Harkness’s practice. Each page brims with visual and intellectual stimuli, demanding the reader's full attention to both the intricate details of her works and the profound social commentary embedded within. From military ships to auction houses, Harkness paints grand narratives of control and chaos, balancing on the edge of realism and fantastical exaggeration.
The cross-sections Harkness employs, such as in her iconic Heavy Cruisers (2004) and Fully Committed (2007-08), are more than compositional devices. They lend her paintings a dissection-like quality, exposing not just architectural layers but emotional and psychological underpinnings. These works are populated entirely by women, offering a subversive take on traditionally male-dominated spaces of power. With a deft hand, she explores how systems of control permeate both public and private realms.
Accompanying the visuals, Tillman’s essay weaves a narrative that helps ground Harkness’s complex compositions in broader cultural critiques, while Jackson’s analysis brings a historical perspective that deepens the reader’s understanding of Harkness’s references to global conflicts and personal traumas. Both essays, alongside insights from the artist herself, serve to illuminate Harkness’s bold commentary on the absurdity of human systems.
Born in 1971, Harkness’s Midwestern upbringing, working-class background, and current life in coastal cities deeply inform her artistic vision. Yet, while her paintings reflect elements of personal experience, they resist pure autobiography, functioning instead as spaces for viewers to confront broader societal struggles. Her worlds—whether military ships or lavish party scenes—are populated by flawed characters, whose vulnerabilities and abuses of power render them universally relatable.
With Everything For You, the reader doesn’t merely consume a catalog of paintings; they are invited to navigate the dense narratives that unfold in Harkness’s imagined worlds. Whether it’s the skewering of capitalist decadence or the portrayal of military hierarchy gone awry, Harkness offers a biting commentary on the structures that govern our lives, challenging us to question what we accept as normal.
This monograph is a must-read for those interested in feminist art, power dynamics, and the intersection of art and history. Harkness’s first monograph confirms her position as a painter whose relevance extends far beyond the confines of the art world, touching on the universal human experiences of power, vulnerability, and the eternal struggle for control.
Contributors:
Lynne Tillman’s novels are Haunted Houses; Motion Sickness ; Cast in Doubt; No Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction; American Genius, A Comedy; and Men and Apparitions, which was nominated for a Republic of Consciousness Prize (UK, 2021). Her story collections include Someday This Will Be Funny and The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories. Her nonfiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965 –67, with photographs by Stephen Shore, and What Would Lynne Tillman Do? , a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Her essays and stories are published in various journals including Frieze, BOMB, Bookforum, Aperture, Artforum, and N+1 ; in artist’s monographs such as those of Dana Schutz, Steve Locke, Stanley Whitney, Amy Sillman, and Raymond Pettibon; and in museum catalogs including those from The Whitney Museum of American Art, The ICP Boston, Hammer Museum, and MOCA. Tillman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent work is Mothercare , an autobiographical book-length essay. She lives in New York.
Harpist Dr. Ashley Jackson enjoys a multifaceted career as a highly sought-after musician, academic, and multidisciplinary collaborator in New York and beyond. As a soloist, she has performed at Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn!, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. As an orchestral and chamber musician, she’s performed on stages around the world including New York Fashion Week; the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman; and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, China. She has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic, The Knights, and is a regular member of The Harlem Chamber Players. As a producer, her credits include the musical documentary In Song and Spirit , 2020, as well as Infoxication , 2018, a mixed-media collaboration with curator Roya Sachs and composer Danielle Eva Schwob. In 2023, Dr. Jackson celebrated the release of her debut solo album Ennanga via Bright Shiny Things, an exploration of African American spirituals and their influence on other forms of American musical expression. She is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Music Department at Hunter College.
From titanic anthropomorphized hot dogs to phantom skirtsuits and strolling fingers, Ivy Haldeman (b. 1985, Aurora, CO) has spent over a decade cultivating a practice in painting and multimedia sculpture that flexes the psychic power of slippage and transfiguration. Blending elements of psychoanalysis, character study, and visual sociology, Haldeman creates work that interrogates the mechanisms of commodity fetishism and the interior subjective. She received a BFA from Cooper Union in 2008, and her work has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at Tara Downs (2023, 2021, 2018), the Yuz Museum (2022), François Ghebaly (2020), and Capsule Shanghai (2019). Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, including at Petzel Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Fredericks & Freiser, the Frans Hal Museum, and Paul Kasmin Gallery, among others. She’s been featured in publications including The New York Times, Cultured Magazine, W Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, The New Yorker, and Artforum. Haldeman works and resides in New York City.