About Harriet

About Harriet

I see my work, and my life, as a joyful celebration of nature and a journey of discovery. I am constantly learning new things about the natural world, and new ways in which to express the ideas that this inspires.

There is so much exquisite beauty out there, often in the smallest and most overlooked of organisms – have you ever really looked at lichen? At ants? At mushrooms? It gives me such joy to experiment with a wide range of media – ceramics, glass, watercolour, acrylic, collage, block-printing and silversmithing – to communicate my sense of wonder through art.

We live in a time when the biodiversity around us is threatened with extinction before we have even learned that it is there. We are only now understanding the complexity of the web of tiny organisms such as fungi that underpin our entire ecosystem.

There is so much that ordinary people can do to help nature, and my passionate desire as an artist is to mediate between science and the public. With my art, I can bring the beauty of, for instance, bumblebees, to people’s attention, and as they start to notice them, they start to care. We all need to care more, and if I can both contribute to that, and create beautiful things that people choose to have in their homes, then my calling has been worthwhile.

Biography

I grew up surrounded by animals in a rambling house outside Oxford, and read History of Art at Cambridge University. In 2001 I moved to Leiden, the Netherlands, where I have lived and worked as an artist and writer ever since.

I have co-authored and illustrated with Katie Pickwoad two children’s books about art, A Bowlful of Happiness, (Geldermalsen 2011), and The Temple Guardians, (Rubenstein 2014). I have two other books in the pipeline: A Childhood in Flowers and Houdini.

I work with a wide range of media, and have had many solo and joint exhibitions in the Netherlands, France, and the UK. My disability forces me to be innovative, but it also makes me more appreciative of the world around me; of the sun on my face and the beauty of a bee’s wing.