About Harriet

Harriet Cawkwell is a contemporary British painter whose work explores how reality changes when it is properly observed.

Her practice focuses on what is already present but rarely seen — the overlooked structures, forms, and systems that exist beyond habitual attention.Working primarily from the natural world, she explores how shifts in scale and perspective alter perception. What is usually dismissed as small or familiar becomes unfamiliar, complex, and significant.

Her paintings often centre on forms that are easily overlooked — insects, plant life, and Shapes and forms found all around us — reframing them so they can be encountered more fully. Not as incidental, but as self-contained and complete.Science offers explanations for these forms, but close observation reveals something else: their improbability. Their precision. Their presence.The intention is not to exaggerate or invent, but to change the conditions of seeing — to slow attention down and return it to what is already here. Because when something is properly observed, it often feels far more extraordinary than expected.

Cawkwell works in layered mixed media, building from raw canvas through washes, inks, and oils, allowing each piece to develop slowly and with sustained attention.She studied at Central Saint Martins and is based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where the surrounding landscape continues to inform her work.