Marcus Dyer-Harrison

@copynwaste

Marcus Dyer-Harrison graduated from the National Art School in 2021 with an MFA majoring in printmaking. Sydney-based artist Marcus Dyer-Harrison, living and working on Gadigal land, Eora (Sydney), engages deeply with themes of memory, entropy, and the passage of time through a multidisciplinary practice spanning printmaking, photography, and collage. His work is focused on the collection of urban and domestic fragments, exploring overlooked, domestic, and liminal spaces within the urban landscape. He examines how decay and the passage of time uncover layers of obscured histories.

Central to Marcus’s practice is a critical interrogation of material culture, particularly regarding notions of ownership and authorship. By recontextualizing images and fragments sourced from books, magazines, and discarded urban detritus, he challenges conventional ideas of originality and permanence. His compositions frequently highlight deteriorating structures, wild growth, and printed imagery of gates and fences. These evocative symbols represent boundaries, ownership, and exclusion, assuming poignant significance within the context of colonised land. They remind us of the contested history of territories and the precarious nature of individual ownership, acknowledging the reality of living in a colonial country with inherent issues.

Marcus’s works invite viewers to confront questions around the transience and fragility of ownership. By depicting details of decay in public space, colonial architectural motifs, wild growth, ruins, and abandoned spaces, he meditates on the inevitable dissolution of human constructs, underscoring a cyclical narrative of decay and renewal. His practice serves as a reflective homage to the complex layers of history embedded in our surroundings, emphasising the ephemeral nature of human presence within landscapes marked by colonial legacies.