HARRIET ATKINSON

Harriet Atkinson (b. 2002, Hertfordshire) is a Norfolk-based painter whose work explores the manipulation of the natural world through animals and plant life rendered in unsettling and unexpected configurations. A graduate of Norwich University of the Arts, Atkinson examines themes of duality, tenderness and violence whilst drawing inspiration from artists such as Paula Rego and Francis Bacon.

Central to her practice is the recurring use of dogs and anthropomorphised animals whose presence becomes both witness and surrogate. Through this canine proxy, Atkinson channels intimate memories and personal reflections on early adulthood. Rows of exposed teeth and exaggerated features oscillate between playfulness and threat, embodying the raw, unfiltered tension of growth and lived experience to remember the past and understand the present. In another body of work, Atkinson employs flora as a means of drawing the viewer into an alternate world shaped by folklore and quiet unease. Through her different subject matters, all of her paintings offer a darkly playful yet visceral language, where familiarity is destabilised to give examinations of the writhing discomfort of experience and growth.