Waterways by Katharine Le Hardy

About

Katharine Le Hardy is known for her contemporary Beach scenes with surfers and people enjoying the seaside, these are of the South West and also in Scotland. In this exhibition she turns her attention to inland waterways and canals.

She says - "Landscapes are a constant source of inspiration for me. I am particularly interested in approaching this traditional subject in an interesting way by looking at different viewpoints and unusual horizon lines."

Working from sketches and photographs, Katharine endeavours to create a window on an imaginary space. The absence of obvious landmarks and identifiable features enables the images to exist as timeless, dreamlike expanses, inviting the viewer into a restorative space and opportunity for reflection in calm solitude.

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.

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 in 2005 and Smithfield Gallery, London in 2010 (solo show) and Chapel Row Gallery, Bath in 2009 (mixed show "Lay of the Land").

In 2005 she was Highly Commended, Young Artist of the year at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and was awarded the NADFAS young artist prize, Guggleton Gallery, Dorset. In 2006 she was runner up at the Royal Bath and West Art Scholarship prize. In January 2008 Katharine was awarded runner up in the biennial Gilchrist Fisher prize, hosted at Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London.