Influenced by early colonial artifacts, paintings and photographs, Harry Watson carves sculptures that exist in his own narrative fictional history. Often described as nostalgic, his whimsical characters possess a magical charm that belies what can be seen as a more critical reading of historic New Zealand.

Watson describes, "When I go into my workshop it's as though I go into the past using old methods to dwell on old times. I like to make objects that exist in a world of their own; some are made from a twisted idea, some are just moody, all I hope achieve a self-containment like a box of tricks or a curious altar. History is saturnine like memory and can be re-created as a fiction. This is what I think drives the work. It's an escape-space from the reality of modern life, a place where things are simple and don't have to be real.

The painted wooden saints, angels and reliquaries that adorn medieval churches held the original fascination for me that inspired the use of polychromed wood."