artist expressing nature
poet exploring the heart
shadowed
nebula
on my living
room wall
how far
away you
take me
to the very
edge of
creation
Lorenda Harder
© 2019
GRATEFUL FOR:
ARTIST statement
Beautiful, unexpected encounters with nature and the pain of the human condition both take my breath away and motivate me to try and express joy through my paintbrush and empathy through my pen.
The messages that manage to grow through the "weedy flux" of my life are all I have to offer, so I am thrilled when others relate to my pieces and receive a sense of empathy or see a reflection of the spiritual. Like Georgia O'Keefe, I always hope that my work possesses such an 'inner energy. . .that it cannot be ignored.'
"Spirit" [featured here]. . . is breathtaking! It graces a wall where I can enjoy it daily. . .its rich hues of blue-greens with swirls of both harmonious and complementary colours entwine as if by the force of a flame reaching upward. It is beautiful! Thank you for creating something so meaningful!"
Owner
Peachland, BC
ABOUT the artist
SHORT bio
Lorenda Harder is a Canadian visual artist and poet whose work traces the emotional and spiritual pulse of the natural world. She blends painting and poetry to explore memory, mood, and the quiet rhythms of life, using nature—forests, skies, and water—as both inspiration and collaborator. Her expressive, impressionist works often emerge from lived experience, reflection, and the subtle interplay between emotion and environment.
Based in the Niagara Region, Harder continues to create across disciplines, inviting viewers to pause, feel, and connect—to the world, to themselves, and to what lies beneath the visible.
Lorenda Harder is a Niagara-based freelance visual artist and poet whose expressive, impressionist works explore the emotional and spiritual resonance of the natural world. Blending painting and poetry, her work invites viewers to pause, feel, and connect with mood, memory, and atmosphere.
Her work has been featured in juried solo and group exhibitions in Ontario and Manitoba and is held in private collections in Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia. She is also a published writer and poet, an arts educator, and a certified Expressive Arts Practitioner (EAP). Harder holds a BFA and BEd (Hons) from the University of Manitoba and has served as curator, mentor, educator, and juror for numerous arts initiatives.
Exhibitions
Selected solo and group shows at Third Chair Gallery, TAG Gallery, B Gallery, Arts & Letters Club Toronto, and more; private collectors in Canada, USA, UK, and Australia. Early highlight: Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, MB,
Past & Current Memberships
SCA, FCA, CARFAC, CIVA, Faith Arts (FA)
Early Award Highlight
Manitoba Society of Artists - Juried Eshibit: 2 awards & sale
her art life
"Lively. Passionate. Spontaneous. Expressive."
her art making
"her dynamic lines and surprising colour contrasts respond to the inner energy of each subject."
her writing
"poems that face the human condition with imbued hope"
HER inspirations
One hopes for something resembling truth, some sense of life, even of grace, to flicker, at least, in the work.
Jasper Johns, 2006
We are all called to be . . . repairers of creation.
Mr. Fred Rogers, 2001