Inspired by the ‘simple life’ of a bygone era, Darlington artist Lou Harris is attracting a growing number of fans.

She talks to Ruth Addicott about terraced houses, outdoor toilets and a time when people's teeth weren't perfect.

‘THE women I paint are my nana through and through,” says Darlington-born artist Lou Harris.

“She was a big lady, one of those roll up your sleeves and get on with it types.”

Lou grew up in Darlington in the 1970s and it is her grandmother and childhood memories that form the backdrop for most of her work.

Since turning professional 12 years ago, her paintings have become hugely popular and are regularly featured at Gallerina, in the town’s Duke Street.

Lou describes her work as “a simple life”, quiet and uncomplicated, a time when people’s teeth weren’t perfect and kids got dirty from playing outside.

Her grandparents lived in an old terraced house in Bishop Auckland and it’s their home that evokes the most memories – the coal house (“full of black rocky gems”), the outside toilet and non-absorbent paper (“threatening discomfort at every angle”) and the front room that no one ever went in, but was always pristine.

“I love terraced houses,” she says.

“I love the feeling of something that’s crumbling and is a little bit worn and tatty because it’s seen a lot of life. You get that sense of community and there’s a lot of humanity in imperfection. My world is not pretty, but it’s full of heart, filled with honest people getting on with their lives.”

Her pictures rarely feature cars (“too modern, they clutter streets”) and there’s a distinct lack of satellite dishes and mobile phones.

One of her favourite pieces is A Long Walk to Freedom which shows a man heading off to his allotment on a Sunday morning.

“He’s escaping from the house for a while before going to the pub at lunchtime,” she explains. “All my characters have set routines and habits because that’s part of life, isn’t it?”

Lou loves injecting an element of humour and often sets out with one idea and changes her mind half way through. One example is Wherefore Art Thou?, originally meant to be a man waiting for a woman on a first date.

“I did the man looking at his watch and I thought I’ll put the woman at the top of the stairs looking down at him,” she says. “I thought I’ll put a newspaper under his arm and then the picture started talking to me. I thought the newspaper could be his excuse for getting out of the house and the woman could be his wife. It was meant to be a pure love affair at first,” she grins. “It ended up a bit seedy with his wife spying on him behind some sharp railings.”

Lou has always had something of a quirky, creative streak (even her seven-year-old rabbit, Albert, has his own room and lives off cucumber sandwiches without the crusts on). She started off painting landscapes and in 1993 got a degree in fine art from the University of Staffordshire. Instead of paving the way for a glittering career in art, however, she left feeling totally disillusioned.

“I was basically told if you weren’t cutting-edge or didn’t do conceptual art, you wouldn’t make it as an artist, so I lost my direction,”

she says. “I didn’t paint for three years and thought there was no point in pursuing it.”

Lou did all sorts of jobs, working in a butcher’s, hospital and local pub to a stint in Presto’s supermarket in Cockerton. The turning point came in 1996 when she met artist Mackenzie Thorpe at an exhibition in Richmond. Lou had admired his work for some time and he not only inspired her to pick up a paint brush, but showed she didn’t have to go down the route of conceptual art to be a success.

“Mackenzie gave me light at the end of the tunnel and became my mentor for a while, giving me paper and pastel to work with when I had no money. He basically turned my life around,” she says.

Since she began exhibiting at Gallerina, Lou has received a steady stream of commissions and attributes a lot of her success to owner Richard Hindle, who she says has been her rock for many years. “I’d be lost without him,” she says.

It usually takes two or three weeks to do a painting – any longer and it gets torn up. “My nana used to say, ‘if you look in the mirror long enough, you’ll end up hating yourself’ and if I look at a picture long enough, the cracks become gaping cracks and I end up hating it,” she says. “If I don’t get rid of it, it haunts me.”

Lou cites Norman Cornish and Tom McGuinness as her favourite artists and has never been a fan of art in the style of Tracey Emin’s My Bed.

“If you don’t agree with it, you’re either staid or just don’t ‘get’ it and aren’t in the in-crowd,” she says. “My work isn’t ‘high’ art. It is neither conceptual, nor overly clever. It is what it is and I’d like to think everyone can understand it.”

She has never been one to follow the crowd, even when she won the art prize in school when she was 15.

Lou was given a book token and told to choose a book that she wanted which would be presented to her at a prize-giving at the end of term.

“The night started well, the room was filled with excited children and proud parents and mine were no exception,”

she says. “Each child was called up to the stage to a round of applause. The prize winner for physics had chosen a science book, history a history book and so it went on until it came to me. My name was called, I went up to the stage and they said: ‘And the prize for art goes to Lou Harris, who has chosen Les Dawson’s autobiography, A Clown Too Many’.”

Given that there are echoes of characters from Les Dawson’s show in many of her paintings, it seems that Lou has had the last laugh.

• For further info visit louharrisartist.com and gallerina.co.uk