The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933 | Page 168

Harriet Macaree?british
A Fleur de Peau
2012
Signed
Unframed
Oil on canvas
61 x 45.5cm
Guide Price £250

Harriet studied painting at Camberwell School
of Art, following a degree in Anthropology,
Archaeology and History of Art at Cambridge. Her
early work was organically abstracted and highly
coloured – imaginary idylls, landscapes of the
mind, etc. She won a British Council scholarship to
paint in Mexico, where she stayed from 1980 to
1991 and returned to a form of expressionistic
figuration, fascinated by tropical landscape and
the lives of indigenous Mexican people.
Harriet moved to Nice six years ago, where her
paintings reflect the golden rosy light of the
South of France, and the cultures of the
Mediterranean. Recent work has been about the
intense mystical purity of this light, the aromas,
colours, and exuberant fertility of the area.
She has exhibited widely in Mexico, the UK and
France, where she will continue to paint and
show, despite plans to return to the UK.

“

I feel strongly that everything possible must be done to protect,
welcome, and provide physical and moral support for refugee
academics, artists, writers, scientists, inventors, poets, and all those
whose creativity brutally repressive states feel compelled to silence.
In recent history, worldwide terrorism, war and genocide continue to
rear their ugly heads. Thousands of years of civilisation don’t seem
to have tempered human lust for power and violence, a gene that may
yet be discovered by our saving light, our scientists and creatives.
I believe this painting touches a nerve reflecting the vulnerable, fragile
and wounded state of many refugees.
harriet macaree

”

166 The Art of Resistance? Defending Academic Freedom

Lot 59