Onnissia Harries left the desert right after graduating from Palm Desert High School in search of new experiences.
She spent 10 years living “all over the place,” including New York, Missouri, Texas and Arkansas; she made myriad new friends and “found her community.” She also started painting again, igniting a passion she’s had since she was 5 years old. But two years ago, the self-taught artist came back for the one thing she couldn’t get outside of the Coachella Valley—her family. With her sister about to have her first child, being an “estranged auntie” wouldn’t cut it for Harries.
“We’re a small family—just me, my mom and my younger sister. When she started having (kids), I was like, ‘I gotta be there,’” Harries said. “We have a very close relationship. I have that with her kids now, and that’s really important to me. My biggest values in my personal life are my art and my family.”
Although Harries has known she wanted to be an artist since she was 5, her journey would take several turns before coming back to that first love.
“As a young person, I was moved away from (art), because people find it very scary,” Harries said. “People were like, ‘Doctor, lawyer, astronaut—these are things that you can do.’ I was intent on having a career in politics for a long time, but after working for a law firm for about three years, (I realized) this is not what I wanted.”
At the University of Arkansas, Harries was student body president for two years and earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. She committed to making art again around the age of 25, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that she started thinking of it as a viable career.
“I had been picked up by an art gallery in Kansas City and was selling my art in partnership with the gallery,” Harries said. “I was working as a bartender at two different places and at a coffee shop, in addition to making art. When I lost all three jobs and things started shutting down, art looked really good.”
The pandemic forced Harries to move her first solo show to an online platform. She was pleasantly surprised when opening night of the show was a big success.
“I sold almost all my pieces. I realized this is something that I can really do,” Harries said. “Once I started, I was doing pop-ups at art stores or craft shops around town and doing commissions on my own and supporting myself. The journey has not been linear, to say the least. I’ve definitely picked up jobs here and there in between, when business was slow, but I’ve always come back to art.”
Since that first show in March 2020, Harries’ paintings have been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York and Long Beach. In 2021, she shipped paintings to Boomer Gallery in London’s Tower Bridge district for a group exhibition.
Harries recently launched her own independent online gallery, Onnissia Harries Art Studio. She said online marketplaces have emerged as critical mediums for artists seeking gallery representation or space to exhibit their work.
“With the pandemic, a lot of artists could not show their work in person anymore, and so the next best thing was to show it online,” Harries said. “Gallery spaces are still No. 1, but the online marketplace is second, and art fairs are the third place to meet people.”
A 2024 study by Artsy, a New York-based online art brokerage, indicates that online sites have passed art fairs as the preferred means for galleries to interact with clients, whether potential buyers or artists.
In her work—large canvas paintings in bright acrylics and oil pastels—Harries centers women’s bodies in sensual, relaxed poses. She said Black femmes are often underrepresented in art and culture, and she draws inspiration from music, Black women’s literature, and feminist/Black feminist texts to depict themes of liberation and leisure.
“The art that I love to make the most is about black womanhood, and that work is really centered in liberation and what the process of liberation looks like,” Harries said. “I’ve found through personal experience, through lots of reading, that the tools of liberation that I love the most come in the form of play, in joy and imagination and in rest.
“At the core, it’s about creating something that allows people who look like me to experience leisure, and what leisure can do for them. Leisure is great for your body. Leisure is great for imagining things when you have problems. It’s just a really powerful tool to get to where you need to be.”
Harries has an active social-media presence. She does fun poses mimicking her paintings and will offer encouraging words. In one humorous post, she insists she is not an influencer.
“Leisure is great for your body. Leisure is great for imagining things when you have problems. It’s just a really powerful tool to get to where you need to be.”
Onnissia Harries
Since moving back to Palm Springs, Harries has been getting reacquainted with the vibrant Southern California arts scene. She exhibited at three shows in the spring and is working on a custom art piece for a client she met while painting live at the ART x SOUND pop-up show in Long Beach.
On Father’s Day, she taught a children’s class on making kites from scratch at the Palm Springs Art Museum. “I was honored to lead another Family+ art workshop,” she said. “It brought back cherished memories of flying kites with my uncle. It was beautiful … to see families creating and playing together, and it reminded me of the power of art to bring joy and connection.”
Harries makes it a priority to hang out with her sister and baby-sit the kids several times a month. When the weather cools down, she hopes to start exhibiting at VillageFest. She’s looking forward to reconnecting with old friends and forging new bonds.
“I’m basically starting all over,” Harries said. “I already have a vast network, like I have connections with the (Palm Springs Art) museum and the industry where I worked previously, but my goal is to meet people again, to start building those relationships again, to develop roots, because I’m going to be here for a while.
“I have people here, but a lot of my friends have moved who I knew in high school. When I can start making relationships again with my community, that’s when I know I’m going to be OK.”
Learn more at www.onnissia.com.