Astrid Harris
MA Fine Art: Painting - Camberwell College of Art, 2023
Astrid’s work is concerned with themes of identity, freedom, and the connection to the self through the return to nature. Her introspective work considers the relationship of memory and emotion to landscape and the body.
She combines the use of oil paint and oil pastel on canvas to paint brooding and pensive semi-abstract seascapes, with ethereal representations and outlines of the female figure whose identity is never clear. Astrid considers how her painting process can emulate the unpredictable nature of landscape. Her paintings are made using a process of layering and removal of oil paint, as an embodiment of discovery and consciousness. She looks to create works that echo the powerful effects of being in the presence of water and nature.
These paintings offer a moment for pause and contemplation. Her paintings address the feelings of nostalgia and melancholy, and dive deep into the complicated emotions that are evoked when being in the presence of the sea, which create a barrier for true connection to the present moment and to identity.
Astrid draws upon theory such as The Sublime, coined by Edmund Burke; the philosophy of Formalism, and Ideas of The Unconscious and Nachträglichkeit by Freud; alongside the Extended Self by Belk when creating her large-scale landscapes.
Instagram: @astridharris.painting
