About
The skies, footpaths, trees and seas I see again and again day after day. These are the motifs I repeat, rework, destroy and process. The manipulation of paint and the subtle surprises achieved through a cycle of putting on and taking off is what facilitates my surreal recreation of a place. Half remembered, half imagined, familiar places.
Kerry Harding’s landscape paintings are concerned with experience beyond the ordinary. In her practice she relies entirely on process and the manipulation of paint, working and reworking the canvas in an almost unconscious manner until that moment of enlightenment, that sublime moment of sensory response to abstract shape and colour, when the emerging image asserts its own meaning and direction on the artist. This is a notion of the sublime that precedes the finished image, bringing instinct and awe into the act of making itself.
Paralleling, in some ways, the traditions of Romanticism, Harding’s images dismiss any picturesque ideas of the landscape in favour of creating a deeper connection with the viewer. Whilst the landscape around her home inspires her work, she seeks to take us from the familiar to the indefinite, playing with perspective and space in order to achieve some sense of ‘other’ or the sensorially weird.
Education
2000-03
MA Painting, Falmouth University, Cornwall
1991-94
BA Hons Fine Art, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University
1990-91
Foundation, Mid Cheshire College, Cheshire
Selected Exhibitions
2021
‘Being with Trees’ The Arborealists, The Bermondsey Project Space, London
‘Being with Trees’ The Arborealists, Gustavo Bacarisas Galleria, Gibralta
‘Weathering the Storm’ Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex
‘Wider than the Sky, Deeper than the sea’ The Stratford Gallery, Gloucestershire
‘Painted Postcards’ Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall
‘The Top 100’ The Auction Collective, The Department Store, Brixton, London
Livingstone St Ives, Cornwall
2020
The Arborealists at The National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire
‘Postcards from the edge’ The Byre Gallery, Cornwall
Cor Gallery, Falmouth, Cornwall
‘Ocean Anthology’ The Stratford Gallery, Gloucestershire
‘Can you see the sea’? Livingstone St Ives, Cornwall
The Art Buyer, Upstart Gallery, London
2019
‘Breath’ The Stratford Gallery, Stratford upon Avon ‘Where the land lies’ The Byre Gallery, Cornwall
The Princes Trust Auction, Highgrove, Gloucestershire
The Arborealists at The Collegiale Sainte-Croix de Loudun, France
‘The Spring Auction’ The Auction Collective, Menier Gallery, London
‘Spring’ Cornwall Contemporary, Penzance, Cornwall
Far & Wild Gallery, Perranporth, Cornwall
Axel Arts, Bath
2018
‘Winter at The Byre’ The Icing on the Cake
‘Winter Exhibition’ Cornwall Contemporary Gallery
Far & Wild Gallery, Perranporth, Cornwall
The Arborealists at St Ives Society of Artists, St Ives Cornwall
Artwave West Gallery, Dorset
The Byre Gallery, ‘Hidden Depths’
The Arborealists with Paul Nash at Black Swan Arts, Somerset
The Arborealists at John Davies Gallery, Gloucestershire
‘Spring show’ Cornwall Contemporary Gallery
Penwith Gallery, St Ives, St Ives School of Painting tutor show
‘Spring Show’ Artwave West Gallery, Dorset
‘Winter Show’ Cornwall Contemporary Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall
2017
‘Into the Woods’ The Byre Gallery, Cornwall
‘An Everyday Intimacy’ solo, Beside the Wave, Falmouth, Cornwall
Membership to Arborealists
Winter show, Circle Contemporary, Cornwall
2016
‘Special Collection’ Badcocks at Beside the Wave, Falmouth
‘There and back again’ with Marion Taylor, Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall
‘Featured Artist’, Bath Contemporary Gallery, Bath
Denise Yapp Fine Art, Monmouth
2015
Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall
‘Cornwall Untitled, Badcocks Gallery at Beside the Wave London
2014
Hilton Fine Art Gallery, Bath
Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall
2013
‘Coast Matter’ Solo show, Heseltine Gallery, Truro
2010
NSA Double Vision, Exchange Gallery, Penzance
2007-09
Micheal Obert Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007
‘Sun, Aloe, Rain’ Solo show, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire
2006
Solo and mixed shows, Lemon Street Gallery, Cornwall
Winter Exhibition, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire
2005
NSA at Thompsons The City Gallery, London
NSA critics choice, Lemon Street Gallery, Cornwall
Solo show, Lemon Street Gallery, Cornwall
Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Miami Art Fair, Florida, USA
2004
Solo and mixed shows, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro, Cornwall
Solo and mixed shows, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire
2003
Residency, Perth International Arts Festival, Kidogo Arthouse, Perth, Australia
Goldfish Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall
Solo and mixed shows, Bishop Phillpotts Gallery, Cornwall
Shortlisted for ROSL scholarship
2002
Bishop Philpotts Gallery, Truro, Cornwall
Northcote Road Gallery, London
2001
Winter Exhibition, South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Exeter, Devon
Solo exhibition, Phoenix Gallery, South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Devon
Northcote Road Gallery, London
2000
Solo and mixed shows, Clapham Art Gallery, London
1999
Solo and mixed shows, Clapham Art Gallery, London
Euroart, Berlin, Germany