Harkins’ paintings feature larger-than-life renditions of fruit, vegetables and ice cubes painted with an unusual degree of detail. She enjoys the macro approach to painting.   The scale “takes them out of their ordinary setting,” Harkins says.  “It gives them more impact and more surface.  It allows me to focus on the intricacies of what’s happening.”
 
Each drop of water or color variation is magnified.  Every shadow and subtle surface change takes on a new meaning when viewed in the outsized context. Harkins obsesses on the details of a single cherry stem and in the seemingly infinite variations of blue and violet in a blueberry.

When she was a child, her father worked for a time at the Magic Marker Corporation.  Harkins was the enviable child with a full set of markers of all different colors.  Now she finally has the time to explore where those colors can take her. “I’m embarking on a new life,” Harkins says.  “I have an opportunity to do something I couldn’t do when I was younger.”