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