Boardwalks, Huts, Jettys & Groynes

About

Katharine Le Hardy is known for her contemporary semi-abstract landscapes. Collectors of her work like her refreshing approach to this traditional subject, by using different vantage points and unusual horizon lines. 

In the past these have focussed on coastal scenes in Cornwall or Scotland, woodlands in the New Forest or Kew and also South America and New Zealand. Each new subject presents Katharine Le Hardy with different challenges, and introduces her audience to new colour palettes.

For this exhibition the subject is Sussex coastal scenes.......

She says “I was keen to do a body of work based on the landscape of West Sussex. Having had a break from painting the natural landscape I have come to this subject with a slightly different viewpoint.” 

“Looking at it with new eyes, I am increasingly interested in the relationship between man made structures and the way in which they inhabit the landscape around them. Whether it be a jetty, lifeguard hut or a series of masts, these structures act both as points of interest and compositional tools. 

I’ve been enjoying the challenge of incorporating these structures into otherwise fluid brushwork.”

Working from sketches and photographs, Katharine likes to use gestural marks and loose impasto brushwork to engage the viewer and charge the composition with movement and dynamism, whilst still maintaining balance, building up the paint and alternating transparent and opaque layers, dripping, washing, splashing, allowing it to take its own fluid course and give the image a life of its own. Dominant foregrounds invite the view to step into subject.

Katharine Le Hardy studied Fine Art at the University of the West of England in Bristol graduating in 2003.

Since then she has regularly shown her work in London and throughout the UK, including the Chichester Open (National Open Art Competition) in 2005, Updown Gallery (Ramsgate) and Northcote Gallery (London).