KATHARINE LE HARDY
When Feeling Out of Sight
Candida Stevens Gallery is proud to present When Feeling Out of Sight, an exhibition of landscapes by Katharine Le Hardy and Kerry Harding, an exhibition that showcases the emotional potential of landscape painting. Despite their highly distinctive styles, there is an intriguing overlap in the practice of both artists. Following an intuitive process of mark-making they layer their canvases as they build their compositions to create scenes that are informed by their experiences but shaped by their imaginations. In their most recent work, Le Hardy’s impressionistic landscapes brim with feelings of escapism and nostalgia, whilst Harding’s abstracted views invite the viewer to meditate on the beauty of nature as it passes us by.
Katharine Le Hardy
The culmination of almost three years of thinking and experimentation, Katharine Le Hardy’s latest body of work examines the ways in which landscapes can communicate a narrative and induce feelings of nostalgia and escapism in the viewer. Here, dramatic scenery is depicted with a tenderness and tranquility that transports us to a calm and thoughtful space; one in which memories and dreams combine, nestled in the forest’s canopy and shimmering beneath the water’s surface.
Using personal photos, memories and found imagery as sources of inspiration, the artist has created a world that is part-imagined and part-remembered, born from reality and yet fantastical in appearance. Recollections of being immersed in the Brazilian rainforest combine with a strong desire to visit the Canadian wilderness, creating a world in which lush foliage frames views of mountainous valleys. Rivers sweep through the works to carry the viewer into the landscape and, like the delicately depicted figures seen dipping their toes in the water, we sense the transience of our presence within the vastness of nature and time.
Le Hardy paints intuitively, working on multiple paintings at once and without a preconceived idea of her final composition. Using thinned oils, she uses an array of tools from paintbrush to scraper to make suggestive and gestural marks. These instinctive applications provide the impetus for subsequent layers, with many of the canvases living through several iterations, rotated and reworked as the artist draws out the scenery hidden in the marks already made.
In this series, the artist’s distinctive, impressionistic style - distilled forms, sweeping brushstrokes and drips of paint - is amplified by the visual history we see embedded, the imprint of earlier layers remaining exposed beneath the surface. Combined with a thoughtfully limited colour palette, there is a depth and honesty that contributes to the sense of narrative within these landscapes. In this, Le Hardy captures something of the essence of experiencing nature unspoiled, be it in childhood, memory or dream.
Isabella Joughin
I find myself in this story, 2023 Oil on
Brave enough, 2023
Summertime songs, 2023
Oil on canvas
100 x 90 cm
If we put our heads together, 2022 Oil on canvas
Carry many dreams, 2022
EDUCATION:
2000 – 2003 BA (Hons) Fine Art University of the West of England, Bristol
1999 – 2000 Foundation Course University of the West of England, Bristol
AWARDS
2019 Winner, Premium Brands Award, Society of Women Artists, London
2007 Runner up: Gilchrist Fisher Award, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London
2007 Runner up, Royal Bath and West Scholarship
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2021 Solo show, If Wishes Were Horses, Candida Stevens Gallery
2019 'Dog Days' Northcote Gallery, London
2018 Joint Exhibition, Northcote Gallery, London
"Fields Notes" Joint Exhibition, One Paved Court, Richmond, London
Solo Show, Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Sussex
2016 Solo Show, Northcote Gallery, London
2015 Solo Show, Northcote Gallery, London
2014 London Art Fair: Envie d'art, Islington, London
Solo show, Northcote Gallery, King's Road, London
AAF Hong Kong, Envie d'Art, London
2013 'Let me introduce...', Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, Kent
Solo Show, Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel, Sussex
Solo Show, Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, Kent
2012 Solo Show: Cricket Fine Art, Chelsea, London
Gilchrist Fisher 21st Anniversary Exhibition: Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London
Affordable Art Fair: Cricket Fine Art, Battersea Park, London
2011 Solo Show: Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel, West Sussex
Summer Show: Cricket Fine Art, Chelsea, London
Under a Grand: Grandy Art, London
2009 Solo Show: Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel, West Sussex
Solo Show: Advocate Galleries, Wimbledon Village, London
Solo Show: Smithfield Gallery, London
2008 Solo Show, Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel, West Sussex
'Lay of the Land' Chapel Row Gallery, Bath
