Harriet Gillet

Harriet Gillett (b.1995 East Yorkshire) is an artist living and working in London. She received her MA in Fine Art at City and Guilds art school in 2022 after studying a BA in English Literature at Edinburgh University (2017). Recent exhibitions include group shows at Brooke Benington, Roman Road, Delphian x Saatchi and duos with Soho Revue and New Normal Projects. She was shortlisted for the Ingram prize in 2020 and is one of the 2023 New Contemporaries. She is currently undertaking the Palazzo Monti Residency.

Responding to an increasingly digitalised world where images and time periods merge and appear in one seemingly eternal present, Harriet Gillett hopes to slow down these increasingly fast-paced encounters into images of reverie. Taking reference from the emotionally charged vibrancy of post-Impressionism and the devotional nature of Western religious formats, her combination of traditional subjects with contemporary materials enables her to tread a line between multiple perspectives and time periods.

Paint operates as a metaphor for both instability and potential transformation, allowing for a fluidity of form, blurring the line between the experienced and the imagined. The same images are repeated across multiple scales, shifting personal memories into the symbolic realm. She often uses lyrics from songs and literature within the titles or sides of paintings to add another layer of perspective.

The paintings become dreamlike and lyrical explorations of identity; moving between intimate snapshots that evoke something more personal and scaled-up sketchbook pages that take on an immersive and more universal quality.

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