Art / Artist of the Month
Artist of the Month: Anna Harley
This month’s artist is Anna Harley, whose limited edition silkscreen prints are exclusively available through our online shop.
Anna Harley uses screen printing to create natural landscapes using drawings, digital images and chiffon exposures to create images strongly influenced by her Scandinavian background.
“I had a fairly nomadic existence in early childhood,” says Anna, who has lived in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sweden and England. “While I still have a strong connection with Sweden, which I visit regularly as I own a summerhouse by a river there, I am also influenced by the memories of and artefacts from my travels around the world”.
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Despite this, Anna’s life is now very much rooted in Bristol, having lived here for the past 30 years. Having attained a Master’s degree in Fine Art Printmaking from UWE, she also trained as a teacher there. She now lives around Victoria Park, having moved to a new house three years ago, and works out of a studio in Spike Island.
The city has also helped to shape her as an artist. “Bristol has a great and vibrant arts scene with great art courses and regular arts events taking place that I can take part in or be inspired by,” she says. In addition, Anna loves being surrounded by other artists, describing Spike Island Studio, where she has worked for the past nine years, is “one of the best print studios in the country”.
The work she is selling through Bristol24/7 was created in her studio. and inspired by a scene glimpsed while driving. “Stellar was inspired by a copse of mature Beech trees, seen on the ridge of a hill as you cross the border of Devon and Cornwall. This stand of trees signalled the start of our family holidays in Cornwall- leaving all the stressful packing and motorway driving behind, our holiday ahead of us.
“Screen-print is a planographic print prices. You print on to paper through a screen, so the image is not reversed, or mirrored, like it is with other print processes. Each layer of this print involves a new exposure, allowing me to build up the print from separate layers that can be printed in any given colour. This print has five separate layers.
“The second layer is from an exposure of chiffon fabric. The chiffon was then folded and re-exposed to create the folds of the hills – I enjoyed working with the random nature of this layer, to create rolling hills.”
Profits from artwork sold through Bristol24/7 will be donated to Shelter, who seek permanent solutions to fight homelessness. Stay up to date with Anna’s work: www.annaharley.com
Read more: Artist of the Month – Helen Jones
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