Artists Catalogue: Lindsey Harris
My paintings are a distillation of various elements drawn from unconsciously derived imagery, mythological material, personal experience and dreams. Some works are visual equivalents of emotional or feeling situations, which often involve human figures. Many years of life drawing laid the foundation for my work. Although motifs may begin from personal associations, what is more relevant in the paintings are the universal or collective themes, which may be archetypal forces, or mythological dramatic situations.
The emotional quality of colour is used to convey vitality and variety of expression. I have used various media, rich in colour potential. I have made my own oil paints using the best linseed oil and pigments only, in order to obtain the purest unadulterated hues.
I have an interest in myths and fairy tales, which reveal the collective stories of mankind, and the emotional trials of life. Archetypes are innate patterns of behaviour, which are inherently invisible but can, however, be expressed in images through art. Since studying the depth psychology of C.G. Jung, I have respect for the processes of the deep psyche, working beneath and around our limited ego-consciousness. It is from this unconscious realm that ideas and images continue to come forth. Inevitably some of the figure compositions suggest a narrative or some dramatic situation that is unfolding.
I studied art briefly at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee in the late 1960's. Thereafter I have taken various professional career turns in teaching, lecturing in art history, arts development, and culminating in depth psychology studies and clinical practice, all of which has been paralleled in my continuing art practice. I have held several solo exhibitions of my work in Hereford, and contributed to a number of group shows locally and elsewhere in the 1980's-90's Recently in 2011 I made a series of illustrations to accompany a colleague's book about the deep psyche. I am currently working on a book based around a long series of oil pastels created over the last 20 years.
