Bindi Harris, the only daughter of the ubiquitously ebullient Rolf, doesn't usually give interviews. "I have avoided them like the plague," she explains with a wide, wry smile as I enter her north London terraced house, "because people only ever really want to talk about Dad, which I find utterly tedious."
The house is full of her art: huge, colourful canvases, plaques and etchings. Photographs of family and friends adorn the walls as collages, although she admits that she has only recently allowed a picture of her father in the house because of the inevitable reaction from visitors. "The conversation would go straight to my father and I'd think: Oh, no, not again."
As we sit in her white, airy kitchen at her homemade mosaic table, overlooking a compact, dingly-dell garden, Bindi explains that not only has it been hard to be taken seriously as an artist with the Rolf tag round her neck, but she is now fighting the prospect of entering the limelight herself. It is the classic conflict of celebrity offspring who feel the desperate need to find their own path and do things on their own merit. Yet they may have a natural talent for the same profession (think Phyllida Law and Emma Thompson, Bob and Jakob Dylan, or Kingsley and Martin Amis); or may simply have absorbed their parents' world from the cradle ("There were always paints in the house," says Bindi). Then there's the problem of opening doors; should they try to knock on them alone, just like any other wannabe, or use their celeb connections?
Bindi has given in to the latter. She has been exhibiting with the whole Harris clan at the Halcyon Gallery in Bruton Street, London, along with mother Alwen and, of course, Rolf. This is the second time they have done a joint exhibition.
Rolf Harris's Rolf on Art series on BBC1 drew in 7.5 million viewers and has become the most watched art series ever. In a poll of 1,000 people visiting a London ArtMart exhibition, 38% named Rolf Harris as a well-known artist, with Constable getting 23% and Turner and Rembrandt not even meriting a mention.
There is no question that Rolf Harris is a household name. But he is also the butt of many a joke. Has it made things hard for her that her father tends to be pilloried as, quite frankly, a painterly buffoon? "As a child I got fed up with everyone going on and on about Dad because he was on telly and because they imagined he was painting paintings on my walls, being funny all the time. It simply wasn't true - he was always busy, rushing off, giving his all to everyone else in the world."
Rolf, however, is clearly proud of his daughter. With disarming frankness, he says, "I think she's become an artist in spite of me. She's been under my shadow all her life and now it's her turn to shine."
Bindi, 38, agrees. "It's a real challenge," she explains, "I'm very proud of my father and I love him very much, so I don't want to diss him or deny who he is, but he's always been a workaholic, distracted by his many projects. It's been hard to live a 'normal' life."
During the past year she has been on a counselling course. "I have to say I've had to work hard on my relationship with my father, especially on getting him to pay me attention. I've had to work hard at getting him to communicate." Which is ironic, when he is thought of as such a great communicator.
Indeed, Bindi, who is disarmingly warm and friendly, seems to have had a surprisingly lonely childhood: "I would be sitting on people's doorsteps saying, 'Can I play with you?' " Brought up in Sydenham, south London, she went to the local school and was looked after mostly by her mother. Indeed, Alwen curbed her own career as a sculptor to focus on family life. "Mum's a wonderful scuptress, who makes jewellery and stained glass lamps," says Bindi. "It didn't seem fair that we had to focus on one person, but when you're a child you just accept things as they are."
Rolf, who has been a regular on TV since 1954, was often present for the public, yet absent from home. "Dad was often off in Australia for three or four months of the year making programmes, so Mum was a bit of a lone parent, and I became a bit of a loner, too."
Being sent to an all-girls private secondary school in Bromley, Kent, seems to have driven Bindi further into her solipsistic imagination. "I had a few good school friends. My cats were hugely important to me and I would be devastated when they died. I was a very morbid child, trying to make sense of life and death as well as my own part in the world. I'd imagine that when birds and flowers opened, they were singing the songs of my dead pets."
Indeed, these motifs appear in Bindi's paintings, which are full of natural images and colours that resonate with her Australian heritage. Her work is rich with symbols. There are images of bottled-up things (plants, birds, trees), which, she explains, reflect painful, repressed emotions, events and experiences. "I've always painted to make sense of things."
Like many children who feel the need to reject their parents' chosen path, Bindi initially ran away from being an artist. After a brief stint at college she threw it all in for four years and worked in Our Price, Miss Selfridge and a hairdressing salon. "I was 17 and thought, 'Art isn't for me.' I questioned whether I was doing art for my parents or for me. I just wanted to be normal and my dad was disappointed, but accepted that I needed to find myself."
Even so, wherever Bindi went, people picked up on her connection to Rolf. "I'd get upset because you don't get a chance to be who you are. People thought we were filthy rich, which wasn't true when I was younger, as he had bad management." Depression set in. "I felt bereft without my art, even though I was being 'normal', going out with boys and clubbing. One day I decided to get back into painting and started doing portraits in oils of local people." With a bulging portfolio, she got herself on to a foundation course, and from there went to Bristol University to study fine art.
But even at university, leading a normal life proved difficult. "On the first day of term, some guy stood up and started singing, 'Tie me kangaroo down, sport.' He was a class rep and had obviously seen my paperwork. I thought: oh no, we're off again."
After a sojourn in Australia, she went to live in Devon. Her parents helped her buy a house and she fell in love with a fellow artist. Bindi was soon pregnant with Marlon, now six.
But the relationship was on the rocks almost as soon as it started. Like Rolf, he was an absent father: "From day one he went away a lot and I felt powerless to stop him." Thinking back, she admits that difficulties with her father, and going to an all-girls school, had deeply affected her ability to relate to men. But, she says, "I know now that it's up to each person to take responsibility for their own behaviour, emotions and life."
Bindi now lives with her son, her dog Zuki and her cat, Batman. Marlon has lost all contact with his father. "I'm very self-sufficient and I think this might put men off, really," she admits. "I have learned from my mistakes to have strong boundaries and to make demands. I think it's you who makes the rules of your relationship and I don't stand for any nonsense now."
Her focus is on her son ("I want him to have a normal life") and her art, but she is still wrestling with coming out fully as an artist and Rolf's daughter. "I've kept myself away from the public, being under Dad's shadow, but in the end he is my dad and I have to accept that it's a quirk of birth. I've never used his name to get on, but part of me now thinks, hell, why not? I am his daughter, after all."
· Bindi Harris's work can be seen at Halcyon Galleries