ABOUT the Artist

BIOGRAPHY

Harini Narayan, was born in India but has lived in the United Kingdom for the majority of her life. A doctor by profession, having worked for decades in the NHS as a consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, she has received national and international acclaim for her services and innovations to medicine. Harini Narayan has also published a major speciality textbook of Obstetrics.

Despite her busy medical career, she has had a passion for painting from early childhood. Winning several prizes at school and university for art, she even received a scholarship to pursue training in art, but circumstances turned her towards a medical career instead.

Her art has been mainly self-taught, developed and honed over years. She works with various mediums including graphite, acrylic and oils to produce figurative realism. Oils on canvas remain her favourite medium these days.

While she grew up adoring the art of Rembrandt and Vermeer, she relates more to Sorolla for his capture of the immediacy of the moment in paintings.

She has produced artworks to accompany blogs for Oxford University Press. Her artwork and portraits grace several homes in England and India. Harini has also produced several commissioned portraits.

Her other passion is for archaeology and research into ancient civilizations and their monumental ruins. This has involved her solo travel to some of the most dangerous and remote places in the world, completely off any safe tourist trail. Her photography has recorded the art, architecture and scripts of these ancient sites that are rapidly disappearing due to wanton human destruction or neglect. To be caught in some of these places would have spelt disaster, “but I have been more or less lucky so far ! ”she says.

 Her paintings reflect amazing glimpses of people, places and events encountered during these journeys. Painted from memory or from parts of her photographs, each painting carries a rare story making her artwork and photographs entirely unique. Her art also responds poignantly to global and social concerns, a reflection of her lifetime experience as a doctor.

She is an avid deep-sea diver and her “Marine Magic” series reflects this experience. She has dived to several ship wrecks in the world’s oceans and briefly over ancient sunken underwater cities off the coast of India. Some of her paintings depict these.

Harini’s style has evolved over time to now include her travel and archaeological photography. She is also currently expanding her portfolio by working on a long overdue book of her solo-travels to remote off-limit places in the world illustrated by her photographs.

Her paintings are enriched by her various passions and experiences which bring a different dimension into her art. Uniquely she has the ability to capture a personal moment, be it a fleeting glance, a mood, the personality and spirit of the person or of the situation. To see her artworks and to read the background of each piece you cannot help but be drawn into that rare world.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My art represents various aspects of life’s journey, the world and its rich tapestry. I have loved painting from childhood and my long career as a doctor has given me deep insight into observing people, the littlest nuance like a fleeting glance, a smile, a frown, a gesture can all carry a mood and tell a story. I attempt to capture this, each painting carries a memory and tells a story.

The subjects are unique, mainly of people or places encountered during my journeys to remote places of the world, in the quest to see and record disappearing remains of ancient civilizations before they become wastelands, victims of man’s prejudices, greed or neglect. I have been lucky thus far in travelling on my own, armed with my Lieca SLR. These solo adventures into less trodden places have given me great inspiration for my artwork and photography.

The ‘Marine Magic’ series of paintings are inspired from my deep- sea diving and are of underwater imagery or of the places I have dived in. These paintings have been inspired by the specialised underwater photographs taken by my diving buddy, my husband. Most images of a diver if seen in the painting, would therefore be of artist herself, …me!

Mostly self- taught apart from early instruction from my father, I have experimented and evolved my art over the years, painting mainly with oils on canvas, less often with acrylics or graphite.

My favourite subjects are people, the young and old and those in- between. I paint unusual landscapes if they carry interesting stories, attempting to create a deliberate structure to introduce rare, less familiar scenes to the viewer such as the Marine Magic series.

My aim is to inspire those who see my art to pause and look more carefully at the world around, to share my passion for unusual places and amazing people.