Henrietta Harris, is a New Zealand based artist who explores, as painter, a keen understanding of the human condition through a muted, soft and weightless palette. The faces in her paintings are often of young subjects, with gleaming eyes, filled with a sense of hope and confusion. As a result her paintings, as physical objects breathe life, conveying all the vulnerabilities and truths that are deeply obvious in each frozen face that she has left for us to explore.
In her process Harris decides on each portrait as she primes the canvas. Her paintings although formal do not come from preliminary drawings or sketches, but rather, find their way into existence simply by an undetermined process, where color meets the canvas.
Consistent throughout her body of work, including those in her newest solo exhibition Second Best Henrietta’s style and mission as a painter is that of a story teller. Documenting and distorted faces and personalities are of particular curiosity to her mission. In her own words: my paintings represent a stream of consciousness.
