'Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.' – Alice Walker

Originally from Manchester and now based in Kendal, Lela Harris (b.1979) is a self-taught artist working across painting, drawing and collage. Her enigmatic portraits are meditations on human experience, and delicately portray a subject's inner world. The results are powerful character studies with textural complexity and depth. Research plays a key part in Harris' work – she uses the past to give voice to those usually silenced in art institutions and history books alike.

Lela Harris at Judges' Lodgings Museum, Lancaster

For the 2023 exhibition 'Facing the Past' at Judges' Lodgings Museum in Lancaster, Harris was commissioned to create a series of portraits of Black enslaved figures who lived in Lancaster in the 1700s. Working with the museum, as well as other groups and universities across Lancaster, Harris conducted extensive archival research to choose the portrait individuals. By sensitively depicting these figures – Thomas Anson, Frances Elizabeth Johnson, Isaac Rawlinson, John Chance, Afamefuna ('Ebo Boy') and Molly – Harris reflected on Lancaster's role in the transatlantic slave trade and on the lived experiences of enslaved people at the time.

Harris' six portraits were shown alongside historic works from the Judges' Lodgings collection, including those by George Romney and Joseph Wright of Derby that depict prominent eighteenth-century Lancastrians who had a hand in, and benefitted from, the Atlantic slave trade. Merchants in Lancaster alone invested in selling an estimated 30,000 enslaved Africans. 'Facing the Past' was shortlisted for the Decolonising Museums Award at the Museums Change Lives Awards 2023.

In 2021, Harris was commissioned by the Folio Society to produce illustrations for a new edition of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple and, more recently, for James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Her book cover for The Color Purple was shortlisted for the V&A Illustration Awards, and her portraits have been shown at the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2022, the RBSA Drawing Prize Exhibition 2023 and the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2024. Her work is held in private and public collections, including Judges' Lodgings Museum, Lancaster University and Abbot Hall in Kendal, which recently acquired two new works – including Rosina (2023).

I spoke to Harris about her approach to painting, her art-historical influences and uncovering hidden narratives.

Kirsty Jukes: How did you make your start as an artist?

Lela Harris: I started to teach myself to paint and draw back in 2018, whilst recovering from a snowboarding accident. Initially I attended evening classes at my local arts centre, pored over books from the library and spent a good deal of time watching art tutorials on YouTube before taking a deep dive into this newfound passion during the pandemic, creating new pieces daily and sharing my work on Instagram. Slowly I started to build a following and people very kindly started to purchase my work. Then, in 2021, I was discovered by the Folio Society and received my first professional commission to illustrate The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Kirsty: What was it like to work on that project?

Lela: It was an incredible project to work on and I'm still pinching myself: despite being a self-taught, unknown artist at the time, the Folio Society took a risk and commissioned me to create the first illustrated edition of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. As this was also my first professional commission, it was quite nerve-racking to work on; however, I was really looked after by the team at Folio, especially by Raquel Leis Allion who was my art director.

This project laid the foundation for my love of historical research alongside my art practice as I spent as much time researching as I did drawing. A good deal of time involved looking at documentary photography of 1930s Dust Bowl America, by artists such as Dorothea Lange, to ensure that my illustrations were historically accurate. I was also hugely inspired by the renowned quilt-makers of Gee's Bend, Alabama, a collective of female artisans. Their brightly coloured, abstract quilts were the inspiration behind my cover design for the novel – which I was lucky enough to receive an award for at the V&A Illustration Awards in 2022.

Illustrating a novel was a dream come true and not something I ever thought would be within my reach, so I'm hugely grateful to both the Folio Society and to Alice Walker for trusting me with her novel. Excitingly I received my second commission from the Folio Society earlier this year for Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. He's one of my heroes, so my mind was a bit blown when they asked! I am currently working on the preparatory drawings and really looking forward to the book launch in 2025.

Kirsty: Can you tell me about your approach to painting, including the impact of drawing on your practice?

Lela: Drawing and painting are very much intertwined for me. Although I discovered my creative voice initially through painting, I soon found that when I focused on drawing to improve my paintings, drawing came much more naturally to me.

There's something about drawing that makes me feel safe and more connected to the subject matter which in turn helps me take more creative risks and produce expressive work. To capture this feeling of freedom, all my paintings start with a drawing and I regularly draw over a painting with coloured pencils to help me problem-solve and push a piece to completion.

Kirsty: What are your art-historical influences? And which contemporary artists do you admire?

Lela: I am hugely inspired by painters, sculptors and documentary photographers. In terms of historic art, I would choose John Singer Sargent, Käthe Kollwitz, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Auguste Rodin, Joan Eardley, Édouard Vuillard, Vivian Maier, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks.

Contemporary artists I admire include Barbara Walker, Catherine Kehoe, William Kentridge, Kouta Sasai, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Jennifer Packer, Nicolas Uribe and Hurvin Anderson.

For me, a 'real portrait' is one that stops me in my tracks: it's something that captures not just a likeness, but a personality and a unique story. That's why I really love Joan Eardley's Street Kids and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's To Tell Them There It's Got To. These portraits are packed with personality, and I admire how both artists use expressive mark-making to convey such dignity, authenticity and energy to their subjects.

Another favourite of mine is Limestone Wall by Hurvin Anderson. I love the sense of space that Anderson is able to capture in his paintings along with his bold use of colour which makes his work feel so immersive.

Kirsty: As part of the Judges' Lodgings project, you were asked to create portraits of Black individuals who lived in Lancaster in the 1700s. How much information did you have at your disposal to inform the final likenesses?

Lela: This project involved a significant amount of research, using parish baptism and burial records as well as runaway adverts of enslaved individuals that have been digitised on the Runaway Slaves in Britain database managed by the University of Glasgow. Alongside this archival information, I was really fortunate to work closely with local experts at Lancaster University, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), Judges' Lodgings Museum and Lancaster Black History Group, a community grassroots anti-racism group, to explore Lancaster's role as the UK's fourth largest slave-trading centre.

By combining the crumbs from the archives, local knowledge and my imagination I created six portraits to celebrate and remember the lives of six Black individuals affected by slavery who lived or travelled through Lancaster during the eighteenth century. John Chance and Molly are just two of the stories I chose to focus on.

Chance was a servant of William Lindow at 1 Queen Square in Lancaster. We don't know for certain whether he was treated as an enslaved servant or a free man, but we do know that William Lindow was an enslaver on St Vincent in the Caribbean. Molly was baptised in November 1764 in the Priory Church close to Judges' Lodgings and died just a month later. We know even less about her; it's likely she lived as a servant, free or enslaved, with a local merchant family.

Kirsty: Your work more broadly aims to uncover hidden narratives, particularly in relation to Black figures. How does this approach impact your work?

Lela: Uncovering hidden narratives is central to my practice. I am passionate about representation and sharing the often-overlooked stories of people marginalised by history. Every piece of work I create – whether it's a portrait, still life or landscape – is first and foremost an exploration of identity and belonging.

Whether through drawing or painting, I hope to explore and expand my understanding of the lives, hopes, dreams and fears of beautifully ordinary people, to close gaps in representation.

Kirsty: How do you deal with studying emotive or traumatic subjects?

Lela: This is something I was asked about recently by a visitor to one of my exhibitions. Despite the emotive nature of some of the commissions that I've worked on, especially my Black Lancastrians exhibition, it isn't something that I've personally struggled with. I think this is mainly because I tend to focus on my subjects as people – as someone's aunt, mum, dad, friend, brother or sister – rather than the traumatic events, such as transatlantic slavery, that were inflicted upon them.

Slavery was and is such an abhorrent practice that, understandably, for a lot of people it's too difficult to engage with and sometimes it's easier to disassociate and dehumanise those affected by it. In order to deal with the horrors of slavery and oppression it's important for me to explore and connect with the everyday hopes, dreams and feelings of my subjects. By doing this, I feel that I'm able to centre myself on telling their stories rather than being swept away by only looking at the trauma of what was done to them.

Kirsty: What do you think are key concerns for Black British artists working today?

Lela: This is such a huge question and as someone who 'accidentally' became an artist, I'm not sure how qualified I am to answer it. Not having any formal art qualifications and having only found my passion for art late in life means I'm very much in my own happy bubble of discovery at the minute.

The one thing that does concern me, however, is the lack of meaningful representation of Black artists within permanent public art collections, as well as the lack of diversity within the workforces of cultural institutions such as museums and galleries. Unless people can see themselves rightly reflected in these spaces, both on the walls and in the faces of people who work in these creative spaces, then I think it's really difficult for Black artists to both feel and be seen.

Kirsty: What are your wishes for the next stage in your career? Any dream commissions or projects?

Lela: I've got two solo exhibitions lined up in 2025 and 2026, so I'm excited to be creating work for myself where I will be sharing my own story for a change. In terms of dream projects, as the last five years have been a bit of a whirlwind – especially as I thought art was just going to be a hobby that has unexpectedly turned into a whole new career – I would love the opportunity to take part in an artists' residency. I haven't done one before and I would relish the opportunity to focus on my practice and have the headspace to think about what I would like to do next.

Kirsty Jukes, art historian, writer and curator

This content was supported by Jerwood Foundation