Artwork copyright John Harter. Photo courtesy of the artist, 1991.

Freeway Monument, 1986

John Harter
American (born 1940, died 2008)

Location: Aspire Middle School for the Performing Arts, Lacey

About the Artwork

Freeway Monument is a surreal landscape painting by artist John Harter. The composition features one-point perspective with a broken highway leading towards shadowy mountains in the distance. Rows of cubes border the road from which emerge fingers, teeth, knotted rope, and other objects.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with North Thurston Public Schools.

About the Artist

John Harter (1940-2008) created figurative and surrealistic paintings.
Born in Seattle, Harter served in the U.S. Navy in the late 1950s and travelled to Eastern Asia with the Navy. He studied at Seattle Central Community College and Cornish School in Seattle. He left Seattle briefly while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1968, but later returned and continued his studies at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1975.