I live in one of the largest cosmopolitan cities in the world, a place where sometimes the natural world is oddly juxtaposed against the cultural. It is this cross-fertilisation of culture and nature from which I draw inspiration and seek to reflect in the work.I am excited by the life and energy in natural materials but seek to transform and defamiliarise them in different ways. I use painting, mark-making, stencilling, scratching and sanding to add surface texture and pattern whilst retaining many of the characteristic signs of movement and growth. Stencilling and spray painting is both a reference to the tradition of mark-making on wicker basketry and a way of connecting with the myriad forms of textual expression which are written onto the fabric of the urban landscape.
I prefer using materials that I have grown or collected myself, yet having only a small garden forces me to consider ways of making the most of limited supplies of materials as well as wider issues of sustainability, economy and waste. I often re-work finished pieces or recycle elements that have had a previous life.
I enjoy working on a large scale with open, linear, abstract forms. Having learned recently that several of my pieces are based on the spatial geometry of hyperbolic paraboloids I am keen to learn more about the relationship between basketry and mathematics as a means of experimenting with form and space.
I welcome commissions and requests to run workshops.
www.basketryplus.org/StellaHarding/gallery.html
