Claire Harkess RSW

CLAIRE HARKESS studied Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art where she specialised in Environmental Art. Since graduating in 1993, she has chosen to concentrate on painting. She was elected RSW in 2005. Always with a focus on the natural world - birds, wildlife and landscapes - Claire’s painting has taken her around the world to Antarctica, Outback Australia, St Kilda and the Galápagos Islands. In 2009 she visited several of Kenya’s National Parks, her first time in Africa, and she has just returned from a trip to India.  

From the source material gathered, memories are digested, ideas develop and the paintings, predominantly in watercolour, are realised. Working intuitively, her paintings seek to echo the balance and rhythms found in nature. Sometimes it is the emptiness of a page marked by a single brushstroke, at other times, a slow build up of repeated layers, put down and scrubbed out, leaving traces and shadows - a memory of paint and place. 

Artist Statement

To travel in hope of magical glimpses
to a natural world
a moment in time
passing
fluid
the flash of an emerald green underbelly
a low flying flock at sundown
the cry of a thousand nesting seabirds
a sense of a before and after
of coming from and
going to
of movement
restful or spirited
of freedom
life 

Painting in watercolour offers a unique directness. The essential qualities of light and energy ever present in the natural world are the very essence of the medium itself. In search of a simplicity and beauty through the painting of a line, shape, colour, the process is immediate and instinctive. Remaining true to both medium and subject, with every brush mark visible, I strive to allow the paint the freedom to speak for itself – thus creating a dialogue between myself, the viewer and the ever evolving work.

When painting a bird it does not matter how much detail your painting has, nor what technique and media are used. It is essential to capture the essence of the bird: its texture, activity and sound – its life. Lian Quan Zhen

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