HARRIET LEE MERRION – Biography
Harriet was born in Sheffield, England. She studied at Falmouth University and now lives in Bristol, working from a shared studio. Harriet has been represented by Heart since 2014.
Harriet’s work is drawn and painted on paper then edited digitally. Pencil line is inked in with a rotary pen. Paint is applied as a subtle wash. The tone of off-white paper provides a consistent backdrop to all her artworks.
Her work combines a variety of personal influences from Japanese woodblocks to Surrealist paintings, botanical and medical engravings. Harriet’s viewpoint is often aerial and on an axonometric projection. Sometimes individual areas are highlighted and magnified. Things don’t need to exist to be drawn in a convincingly accurate line. Weird creatures are devised, a figure can be seen walking though someone’s mind, impossible puzzles using infinity devices and shadows play out a concept. The surreal artworks that result seem to transcend their original context.
The thought provoking nature of her work has been at the disposal of a range of international editorial clients including Die Zeit, Bild, The New York Times, The Guardian, Marie Claire France and Le Pan in Hong Kong. Creating a series of horoscope artworks for Marie Claire seems particularly fitting for Harriet, whose work has often been described as having a dreamlike quality. She has also created campaigns for The British Library ‘Discovering Literature Series’ looking at the work of the writers Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolfe and Angela Carter.
Harriet has recently completed a scholarship at The League Residency, New York and has been a guest speaker at Guadalajara Book Fair, Mexico. She is the co-founder of Beginning Middle End a publishing collective of illustrators who regularly create artists books and exhibit together.
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Atlanta Magazine, Bild am Sonntag, Bavarian State Opera House, Bloomsbury, The Boston Globe, British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy, The British Library, Cosy Club, Drexel, Editions Gallimard, Frankie, Geo Wissen Magazine, The Guardian, Hermès, Human After All, Inside Housing Magazine, Johns Hopkins Health Review, Little Brown, Marie Claire, Max Joseph magazine, Moment by Moment, Muun, New Scientist, The New York Times, The Observer, Le Pan Condé Nast, Penguin, Protein Journal, Radio Times, Soho House, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tricycle Magazine, Wellcome Trust, The Woodland Trust, Wired, Die Zeit Magazine, XOXO Magazine