I’ve always used colour as a way of expression, whether it’s what I wear or how I decorate my home: I’m drawn to colour. And I’ve never used it in a realistic way, because that didn’t really interest me. Colour is about evoking emotions from people. Some people are scared of colour, or of vibrant colours, and I like that they’re forced to interact with it.

I use colour very instinctively. Everything’s unplanned, so I don’t study how colour is used in my practice. It’s based on energy or the emotion that I feel at that time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it really doesn’t, and that’s part of the process. I like that there are mistakes. I like the imperfections. I think it’s incredible how colour changes when it’s next to other colours. They have completely different characters. That’s where the emotion of colour comes from.

I try and travel as much as I can. This year, I went to India for two weeks with my dad, and as a result, a lot of the work I’ve made has been inspired by that. Photographs I’d taken and drawings I did out there. It comes from a place of memory: of things that I’ve seen or felt. So it can be from sites I’ve visited in India and Mexico, but it can also be from walking to the studio and seeing a blue gate which triggers something.

You said there ‘sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t’. On the occasions when you think it doesn’t work, do you keep it? Or do you start again?

My paintings now are very much about experimenting on the canvas. The reason I like working big is because it allows me room, not just physically, but mentally, to be able to see the composition and what colours work next to each other. If there’s something that doesn’t work, I can work in another area for a while and see if it balances out. If not, I can scrape it off, or let it dry and paint over it.

One of the things that interests me in this way of working is the history of marks and colour. Colour can show through in a tiny area, from a layer underneath, and that reminder of a past version of the work is quite powerful. That mark of something you’ve done before that didn’t work. And when you get up close, you can see it, and I like that it forces whoever’s looking at it to acknowledge that. I don’t like things being too perfect. I like a bit of chaos, a bit of mess. You can see the mistakes that were made, or things that might not have worked, but you haven’t gotten rid of them completely. And I think that’s interesting.

It’s very human, in a way. So, the pros of working on these large-scale canvases are the experimentation and the layering. Are there any cons? What’s it like in your studio? How does it work if you’ve got all these massive canvases on the walls and floor?

I’m very lucky that I am able to have a big studio in London. I’ve created the problem of big canvasses for myself. I think there’s something great about it being hard to ignore. I do like small works and I find them very personal and intimate, but when you have a large canvas, you can be more physical. I like dancing around it, moving around it. I flip the paintings around when I’m working on them, so they can change direction. The paint moves in different directions. I think I’m more timid when I work in a smaller scale. Big canvasses confront: both me and the viewer.

I’m much more aware of the meaning behind what I’m doing.

One of the things about the studio is that I have four or five big canvasses out at a time, and I dance between them. So I don’t just work on one from start to finish. I do a stint on one painting, and then I have to move and work on another one. But I like being able to see it out the corner of my eye, or look at it when I’m walking around because then they inform each other. Often, I mix big vats of paint, and then I will use the same colours on multiple paintings, which creates a nice uniform between them even though they’re all very different. Sometimes it’s too distracting and there are too many, but I also think it’s good not to be hyperfocussed on one. Otherwise it can really get you down.

I’m reading this novel at the moment called House on Via Gemito. The narrator is the son of a Neapolitan artist who becomes very obsessive when he’s working on a single piece of art, and it creates a horrible environment for his family in the house. So I think you’ve got the right idea. Maybe it’s better for you and for everyone around you to work across multiple pieces at a time…

I agree. It’s a good process. It does mean that works can take ages, though. There’s one painting in here that I’ve had out for probably about three months, and haven’t touched it. For some reason, I’m hesitant to touch it until I know what to do, which is very unlike how I usually work, but by having it out, I’ll be working on it subconsciously in my head while doing other things.

If you’re working across multiple pieces at once, and ‘dancing’ between them as you said, have you ever considered performance art?

I did a live painting at Bonhams once, in 2020. It was actually one of the things that made me want to work on a larger scale, because I was doing it on a three, maybe, four-foot-long canvas. I worked solidly without any distraction, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. It was great for that reason, but I’m not sure performance art is for me. I find my process too personal and private.

I am interested in installation, and the idea of making my work more three dimensional, or immersive. There’s this artist that I love called Betty Woodman who had a show at the ICA years ago. She was a ceramicist. In the show, she created big artworks on unstretched canvas for the wall, and she had her ceramic pots coming out of them. There were little tables on the floor, too. She’d walk among it all. It played with your senses.

My mom and my sister are both interior designers, and my dad’s an antique dealer. I have that sense of what is around you is important, the attention to objects. That’s done something to my brain, and I wonder how that would influence an installation piece I’d create.

Other than Betty Woodman, who are some of your artistic influences, or literary influences? I saw that one of your pieces was called ‘Two Poems’. Do words ever inform your art or practice?

I’m currently reading this book by Olivia Laing: Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency. That’s definitely having an influence, in the sense that I’m much more aware of the meaning behind what I’m doing. Before I started painting, I knew what I was interested in aesthetically, which is what I was doing. Then, I stopped printmaking, because I felt like I was a bit of a cog in a wheel, and I wasn’t stopping to think about what I was doing and what mattered – I was working with commercial galleries, so it was easy just to keep on going, because it was financially stable. At that point, I started to think about why I was painting, why I wanted to be an artist: all those massive questions. A lot of Olivia’s book is looking at the whys of art.

I feel really lucky that I’m an artist, but I often wonder if it’s quite a selfish thing to be doing.

I feel like I’m experimenting when I make art, because it’s an intuitive process based on making mistakes, but more and more now I’m really thinking about the questions you’re asking. Why am I painting nature? Why is my work becoming more abstract every month that goes by? Why do I use these colours? And it’s questions like these that are easy to ask, but also easy to ignore. You can think, ‘Okay, I know that’s a question I have, but I’m going to just keep on making.’ Because sometimes you think that making is going to lead you to the answer. But now, I’m reading or seeing people like Olivia Laing or Amy Sillman or Deborah Levy who demand more. Olivia Laing in particular, I find their writing expansive, because it’s informative and personal, and it reminds you about what the point of art is.

One of the other things that I get torn about is that I feel really lucky that I’m an artist, but often wonder if it’s quite a selfish thing to be doing. I’m doing it for myself, hoping that it will have an impact on someone of course, but I feel like I need to do it for myself. Olivia’s book is all about the importance of art and how it represents what’s going on in the world, and why artists do the things they do, and why things happen at certain times. Sorry, that was a long tangent.

Not at all – so your literary influences at the moment are works that explore the meaning of art, which then feeds into your practice?

Yes – I’m also reading this book called Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel. I’m listening to it because the book is intimidatingly big, but it’s about the female abstract expressionists in America, like Lee Krasner, who was married to Jackson Pollock, and Elaine de Kooning, who was married to William De Kooning. They were obviously really prominent figures in the art world, but the women were often forgotten or not acknowledged to the same degree. The book talks about how dedicated they were to their work, regardless of success or notoriety. They created a collective that meant they had each other, and they could pursue it in the safety of each other. I enjoy reading about artists that have struggled. It reminds you of how lucky you are, and how it’s good to question yourself and to keep on going, because it can be difficult and maddening.

I realised I didn’t answer your question about words. Often I take the titles of my works from music that I listen to when I make it. They can be from literature I’ve read – I’m not a poet myself – but more often than not, from songs and lyrics.

What kind of music do you listen to while you paint?

It’s quite broad. It can be Beyoncé or Arthur Russell, or sometimes it’s Nick Drake. It goes in stages. Recently, I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Max Richter. Sometimes I like lyrics and sometimes I don’t like lyrics. It depends on what I’m working on. I can’t really listen to audiobooks when I work. I find that too distracting. I zone out.

Do you ever have instances of synesthesia? Do you ever find yourself painting a Beyoncé song?

I wish! I saw this funny video the other day of an artist painting a single stroke, and then dancing around their studio. Sometimes I find if I’m listening to Beyoncé, I am dancing around. I become a bit more spontaneous. But then I don’t know if that’s because of the song, or if I put on the song because I was feeling more spontaneous…

Can we talk about the art industry? You were a finalist in this year’s Ingram Art Prize – congratulations, by the way! I’m curious about how it feels to receive these recognitions at this early point in your career, particularly when you’re exploring quite internal and personal questions surrounding your art. Is it sometimes strange to be working through that, and also trying to get your work out there in the art industry?

I find it very challenging because I feel like I’m just getting to grips with what the work means to me, let alone what it could mean when you have to present yourself to other people. It doesn’t come naturally. I spend every day in here on my own, thinking. Sometimes when I leave and go to talk to someone I forget how to speak, because I haven’t spoken all day. It’s bizarre. Putting your work out there is what you want, but it also feels like a complete contradiction of what you’ve been doing.

Getting shortlisted for the Ingram prize was wonderful because I apply for things all the time, so to get a good response is a massive confidence boost. However, I found it hard to interact with people at the private view that was held for the prize. I can, of course, talk about the work, but I want people to engage however they want with it. It’s not up to me to explain, and that’s one of the reasons I think my work is becoming increasingly abstract. It’s not fully abstract. There are recognizable elements that resemble flowers or nature, but I want some ambiguity. I want people to see their own thing or make their own minds up.

So the increasingly abstract nature of your work is, subconsciously or not, a move to broaden its meaning?

I think I’m finding it more freeing, yeah. All my paintings start with a drawing underneath – a very rough drawing from either a photograph or from life. The painting drastically changes as I work on it. And it never looks anything like how it started. I think the increasing abstraction in my work is a reflection of my own mind. While everyone has a busy brain, mine tends to be quite scattered, and abstraction seems to capture this more effectively.

Do you think it would help your ‘scattered brain’ if art wasn’t so lonely? Do you find the image of the ‘lonely artist’ one of peace or would more collaboration help order your thoughts (if you want your thoughts ordered, that is)?

It is lonely. My mom always warned me of that when I was younger and I said I wanted to be an artist, but I actually really like it. I have friends who share studios with other artists, and there are parts of me that envy that. They can have their own work but they can also engage with the works of others and have discussions. But I also feel so lucky to have a space that is completely my own, not just for creating. How the studio is laid out is so personal to me, and I need that. I am applying to do a Masters next year, and part of that is to be around other people. I want to be thrown into it and learn the tools because the art world can be quite intimidating.

Other than Masters’ applications, what are you working at the minute? Or what’s next?

I feel like I’ve got this sacred time right now. I don’t have too many exterior pressures like shows (which are of course always great to have). It’s a luxury to be able to have this time where I can just make and experiment, and there’s no pressure. I really want to work on something big. Really big. I’ve been stretching some canvases and putting them together.

How big are we talking?

Maybe four metres by three metres. I’ve never worked on anything that big. On the other hand, I’m asking myself what will happen if I reduce the scale? I’m a little intimidated by working smaller scale, because I find it restrictive and claustrophobic, so I want to challenge myself. I think I should.

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Image Credit: Evie Milsom.

Rose Electra Harris is a painter and printmaker living and working in London. Harris gained a BA (hons) Fine Art Printmaking from The University of Brighton (2015) and specialised in etching. Harris is a trained printmaker and self-taught painter who has an intuitive, process-based practice. She takes inspiration from nature, emotion and self-expression, explored through colour, shape, texture and form in the pictorial space. She embraces the freedom of gesture, the scale of the canvas, and the ongoing process of learning and experimentation. Solo exhibitions include: Parade, Union Gallery, London (2024), Wild Flowers, JO-HS Gallery, Mexico City (2023), The Difference Between Things, Blue Shop Cottage, London (2018). Harris has received the following prizes and awards: Bainbridge Open, The Art Academy Prizes (2018), and the University of Brighton Printmaking Award (2015)

Zadie Loft is a writer from Suffolk, now living in London. After reading Classics at Cambridge, she studied Creative Writing at Oxford and is represented by Becky Percival at United Agents. She works as the Marketing and Editorial Assistant at The London Magazine.

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