Hello, my name is Kiera Harkett, and I'm a multi-media artist based in Harlow.
When creating my work I love to explore different subjects, so far I’ve done works on PTSD, nurses during COVID, cultures and mental health, and I use different mediums for each artwork depending on what it is and the effect I’d like it to have on the audience.
I've been creating art for the past eight years, and my work has been featured in several local exhibitions, and while in college I won a competition which was a live brief with EHAAT (Essex and Herts Air Ambulance) to design a statue for one of their bases and it is still on display. I'm passionate about using art to create pieces that have an impact and make people feel something when they look at my artworks.
After completing my course, I have a few ideas for some future projects - I’d like to create work based on feminism and the double standards that are still present to this day, and I’d also like to sew some costumes/clothes and paint directly on them, experimenting with fashion and art.
For my final project I decided to do psychology for my subject, during the research portion I narrowed it down and decided to look into mental health. I went into this wanting to focus primarily on painting as, as its not my usual medium, and the first two where but after creating those I went onto charcoal which is one of my favourite mediums to use.
I started out using skeletons as my subject since it’s what I always drew when I first started out making art. I decided to add a more personal touch to my work, and I decided from that point to do self portraits and relate it to me.
My favourite piece I created for this project is ‘Together’ which is to show the positive impact that animals have on people’s mental health and is something that I have been able to experience first-hand.
For my final piece I decided to do a mixed media piece, charcoal and acrylic paint. The piece is titled ‘all of me’ . The three heads show the emotions you go through and when you struggle with mental health it isn’t always just one and its always so overwhelming. This project has helped me to experiment and to step out of my comfort zone.