Keeping Watch

Kim Harding

Oil on canvas, framed

53 x 53cm

2025

I first encountered Kim Harding’s work as part of the 2025 National Emerging Art Prize, and it stayed with me long after. There’s a quiet tenderness in the way she paints dogs—held within richly patterned fabrics—that feels both intimate and deeply considered. Her work carries a sense of care, of noticing, that I find incredibly moving.

As an artist myself, drawn to the stillness and symbolism of rural life, I feel a natural kinship with Kim’s sensitivity to the everyday. She reminds us how much meaning can live in the familiar, how beauty can be both gentle and profound.

It feels important to celebrate artists like Kim, and to recognise the depth and diversity of women’s voices in painting today—across Australia and far beyond. Her work is a beautiful contribution to that ongoing conversation.

Artist Statement

I am a representational oil painter drawn to the quiet beauty of rural life and the personal symbolism of everyday objects. Working from my farm-based studio near Mudgee, NSW, I explore themes of memory, stillness, and domesticity often through the layered use of pattern, light, and form.

I primarily work in oil, with occasional use of charcoal, pastel, and acrylic to support studies and experimentation.

My work invites reflection and emotional connection, encouraging viewers to find meaning in the familiar.

Artist Bio

Kim Harding is an Australian visual artist living and working on a fine wool merino farm near Mudgee, NSW. Her representational oil paintings reflect a deep interest in memory, domestic life, pattern, and the emotional resonance of ordinary objects. 

Kim’s creative roots trace back to a remote childhood spent in Far North Queensland and then on Busuanga Island in the Philippines,  formative years that fostered her imagination, love of solitude, and early passion for drawing. After returning to Australia, she studied Graphic Design and later ran her own successful design business, skills that now inform the structure and composition of her visual art.

Today, Kim paints full-time from her studio in Ilford, primarily in oils onto canvas. Her work is held in private collections and regularly exhibited across regional galleries, including Satch & Co Gallery (Holbrook), AK Bellinger Gallery (Inverell), and Rosby Gallery (Mudgee). 

Kim has received several regional art prizes, and was selected as a finalist for the 2025 Portia Geach Memorial portrait prize. 

Kim has a solo exhibition scheduled at Rosby Gallery in 2025, and her work will also be featured in a group show at Mudgee Regional Gallery in the same year. Kim has an upcoming interview with Christina Lowery in The Art of Making Art Podcast. 

Alongside her studio practice, she teaches one-day painting workshops, with new sessions scheduled for late 2025. She welcomes commissions and is open to collaboration with curators, collectors, and fellow artists.

(Shipping within Australia will be $50 and worldwide approximately $200.)

To purchase this work please contact Harriet Links through her website.