Kerry Harding

Paint has always been the hero; the alchemy of mixing, pouring and rubbing away has made the paint and the process of painting integral to my creative expression.

Like many painters before me, moving to Cornwall in 2000 was a fundamental moment in my work. Seeing a horizon after being in London for 7 years and living by the sea after years of longing, I felt like I’d come home. Cornwall offered me the subject matter of a weathered atmospheric landscape created through elements adding and taking away. This physicality and unpredictability of what is left behind were exactly what I enjoyed most in the painting process.

Returning to the studio full time in 2012 after having a family and living in South Africa, I needed to reconsider my abstract expressionist response to the Cornish landscape. Painting and exhibiting outside of Cornwall, and indeed the UK and Europe, allowed me to experiment and develop in the context of completely new aesthetic considerations.

The expression of painting itself will always be at the forefront of my work, however I see these new representational elements as another way to explore its foundations and limits.

Photography by Simon Cook 01736 360041