The HARRY MC Studio in Bath
Inside the Bath studio of British abstract stripe painter Harry MC
Where the city’s Georgian proportions, light and architecture inspire a series of striped abstract paintings exploring colour, geometry and rhythm – an historic working studio and gallery space dedicated to modern art and design in Bath, England.
Bath is a wonderful setting for an artist's studio, an irresistible location combined with artistic legacy and inspiring surroundings. With impressive Georgian architecture, such as The Circus and Royal Crescent and its rich cultural heritage, highlighted by Thomas Gainsborough, whose studio was at No. 17 The Circus (1758–1774) and a place where he produced many of his distinguished works. And of course, celebrated author, Jane Austen, who resided in Bath in the early 1800's and whose lodgings in Gay Street are just steps away from the Harry MC studio. Bath remains a hub for the arts, offering visitors from around the world a vibrant modern art scene set within a UNESCO World Heritage city.
Studio Visit: A Day in the life of Harry MC at his Bath Studio
In the heart of Bath, nestled amongst the grand Georgian terraces and cobbled streets lies the studio of Harry MC, housed in a four-storey townhouse built in 1765. From the moment you step through the front door, the visitor is greeted not only by the palpable weight of history but by an almost tangible sense of creative energy.
The house is both a space for creation and a gallery, several of Harry’s striking large-scale works on display. The front door, almost always open, invites tourists and visitors from around the world to wander in, as they stumble upon this hidden treasure of contemporary art.
Today, I am privileged to observe Harry at work, and the experience feels almost like a pilgrimage to a modern-day studio akin to those of the greats—Cézanne’s at Aix-en-Provence comes to mind, with its rawness and its vitality. Harry is casually dressed and moves around the canvas with a confidence that belies the improvisational nature of his work. His approach is fluid, almost primal in its freedom, using broad, sweeping strokes of oil paint applied with a large brush. There is no clear roadmap, no planned design—just a single stripe added at a time, the decision to lay down another stroke driven by a sensibility as much as calculation. Harry paints with the same sense of playfulness he’s always had, yet the works that emerge from his canvases carry the weight of experience.
As I watch, I am drawn not only to Harry's technique but to the fascinating way in which the studio environment mirrors his artistic philosophy. Much like his work, the studio feels like an evolving organism, one that welcomes serendipity and embraces the fluidity of space and time. The walls are lined with works in various stages—some still unfinished. This is a space where art is made without pretension and where discovery happens organically.
The energy in the room is almost infectious; you can sense the presence of those who have walked through these doors before—curators, collectors, even casual passersby who have become captivated by the work. And yet, despite the openness of the space and the occasional interruption from curious tourists, there is an undeniable intimacy to Harry's process. He does not paint for an audience, but for the sake of creation itself.
THE WORLD PAINTS HERE
A living testimony to Bath’s enduring magnetism as a centre of art, imagination, and human encounter.
From this dialogue with Bath’s past emerges a new experiment — “The World Paints Here.” Conceived in Harry MC’s studio, just steps from where Jane Austen wrote and Thomas Gainsborough sketched, the project invites visitors from around the world to add a single stripe to a communal canvas. Each stripe, like each traveller, becomes part of the city’s ongoing story, a record of connection, colour, and chance.
Filmed and shared in real time, the work transforms into a global participatory artwork. On TikTok and other platforms, each contribution becomes a micro-moment of creative exchange: the brush passed from one culture to another, from Bath to the world. Over days and months, the painting grows organically, a living testimony to Bath’s enduring magnetism as a centre of art, imagination, and human encounter.
“The World Paints Here” fuses heritage and immediacy, craft and community. Just as Austen and Gainsborough once drew the world’s gaze to Bath, Harry MC’s project brings the world back, this time holding the brush. It is at once playful and profound, a modern act of hospitality through colour, where everyone, for a single stripe, becomes an artist in Bath.
Artist Thomas Gainsbourgh's house and studio at 17 The Circus, Bath.
The Harry MC studio is one of those Georgian houses that remembers. Built in 1765, its lime-plaster walls have been papered, painted and patched by an improbable cast of occupants – authors, surgeons, botanists, even the odd artist – and they’ve all left their traces. When the most recent refurbishment peeled away the wallpaper, the bare plaster gave up a pencilled note from 1904: one decorator proudly recording that he had papered the room in February, another returning in June to “repaper” it. Perhaps the owners changed their minds. Perhaps fashion moved on. Either way, the handwriting still floats on the wall like a quiet conversation across time.
As the work went on the house kept offering up small mysteries. An elegant red lady’s shoe – a little battered, but still with a certain Austen-era poise – was found hidden high in the wall, tucked away as a charm to ward off bad luck and protect whoever lived here. On the lower ground floor the modern screed was lifted to reveal the original grey pennant flagstones, patiently waiting under decades of levelling compound. Old cigarette packets from the 1920s lay under the floorboards where past workers had slipped them, a casual archaeology of breaks and stolen moments. It’s as if the building reveals itself in layers, the way a painting does when you look long enough.
For Harry, this slow uncovering feels close to his own practice. The stripe paintings made here are also built in strata – bands of colour laid down one decision at a time, holding the memory of what came before. The studio’s history runs under everything: the signatures in pencil, the hidden shoe, the worn stones underfoot. All of it folds into the work, a reminder that every surface, however abstract, is carrying its own story.
Dogs should be kept on wheels when visiting the studio.