Samskara Drawing

Born 1983 in South Wales, but raised in South East London where she lived until the age of 16. Harriet has since made her home and studio in rural Co. Leitrim, Ireland, where she lives to date. Harriet holds a 1st Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from Sligo IT and completed her (MFA) Masters in Fine Art at the University of Ulster in Belfast in 2009. Harriet is a multidisciplinary visual artist, working in many mediums including charcoal, paint, installation and video. Her work is an ongoing exploration of themes inspired by fairytales, nursery rhymes and mythology. “I am interested in ‘hermeneutics’ the art, theory and methodology of interpretation, giving attention to characters, events and symbols in a story’s underlying structure.” As an artist who has come of age in an era defined by popular culture her work, often described as Pop Surrealism exploring ideas concerning the mass media as a present and active part of the cultural consciousness. Harriet’s work contains a multiplicity of visual languages inspired by popular culture namely animation and childhood culture, fragments of narrative carry with them vestiges of their original meanings and yet in their new setting can also suggest other interpretations. Imagery and forms isolated from their original contexts to combine in new and unexpected ways. "My artwork is mainly narrative based featuring feminine characters. I think of myself as a multi-disciplinary artist, my approaches are often diverse, the works like myself are ever changing and developing, I am yet to have found a definitive style. There is however an evident evolution in my work and at times a deconstruction, the work is personal underneath the formal explored themes, ideas and inspirations they contain. The artwork becomes an energy container that acts as a personal archive of memory, a recording of some emotive expression of myself at an early time when the work was new. Looking at older work is a way to reflect on myself. Making art for me is fun and sometimes challenging, a centering meditation and adventure into my imagination, reuniting fragments of thought, de-cluttering my mind and heart by releasing those things I struggle to express in any other way."