PRESS RELEASE

05| 05 | 16

Kerry Harding | Featured Artist

Bath Contemporary Fine Art

1 to 13 August 2016

Kerry Harding | Chapel Pink II, 2016 | Oil on Canvas

This summer Bath Contemporary presents an exhibition of landscape paintings by featured artist Kerry Harding. A graduate of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University and later Falmouth College of Art, Harding is resident at Cornwall's respected Krowji Studios.

This new collection of fifteen oil on canvas works reflects the artist's intense engagement with the landscape of the South West. Exhibiting a semi-abstracted, occasionally surreal style, her paintings explore texture and physicality by way of a highly process led, responsive approach to working, in which old and new canvases are stained, masked, painted, sanded or stripped back with thinners as the image takes shape.

‘The starting point for a work might be something figurative, or the paint might give me something I can hook into. The process, the physical on and off is so important to me. I see my practice as setting up my studio for happy accidents. If I control things too much it gets contrived but when I let the paint talk back to me, those are the best conversations.'

Revisiting favourite viewpoints again and again throughout the year, Harding responds to seasonal changes and new, incidental details in an otherwise familiar landscape, combining conflicting realities such as winter sky and summer light, flattened shape and detailed depth of field with other random, process-led oddities, resulting in a pleasingly disconcerting collection of images which exploit the increasingly fluid boundary between figurative and abstract painting.

Kerry Harding ‘Featured Artist' is on show from 1 to 13 August and accompanies the gallery's mixed exhibition which remains on show throughout the summer. For further information contact Bath Contemporary, 35 Gay Street, Bath, BA1 2NT | 01225 461230 |gallery@bathcontemporary.com|www.bathcontemporary.com| and www.kerryharding.co.uk

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 Kerry Harding, Chapel Pink II, oil on canvas
 
 

Editors Notes

Kerry Harding

Kerry Harding is a contemporary landscape painter and works from her studio at Cornwall's Krowji Art Studios. A graduate of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University and later Falmouth College of Art, she has exhibited in the UK, Australia, America and South Africa. Having previously lived and worked in London and Cape Town, South Africa, she now lives in Cornwall with her husband and two sons.

Kerry Harding | Studio W23a, Krowji Art Studios, West Park, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 3AJ | 07531 116004 | hardingkerry@yahoo.com |www.kerryharding.co.uk

Bath Contemporary Fine Art Gallery

Bath Contemporary is situated in a beautiful, grade II listed Georgian building in the heart of Bath. With almost 100 square meters of space the gallery's light, airy interior includes an atrium gallery to the rear of the building. The gallery is passionate about supporting both established and emerging artists, showing work that demonstrates not only talent but inquisitiveness, intelligence and originality. As part of their commitment to supporting arts education, Bath Contemporary works in partnership with Bath Spa University, offering three fine art students work experience as part of their Professional Practice Module every year. The gallery also works with The Holburne Museum's volunteer programme, offering those interested in exploring a career in the commercial arts sector the opportunity to gain experience in a gallery environment. Gallery Director Bridget Sterling is also a trustee of Chapel Arts.

For further information contact Gallery Director Bridget Sterling or gallery assistant Oliver Adams | 01225 461230 |gallery@bathcontemporary.com| Bath Contemporary, 35 Gay Street, Bath, BA1 2NT |www.bathcontemporary.com

For interviews, further press information and additional high resolution images contact Mercedes Smith at Fine Art Communications07825 270235 | mercedes@fineartcommunications.co.uk| www.fineartcommunications.co.uk