Harm Weistra studied Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, where he graduated in 2011. Prior to that, he completed a Masters in Social Sciences, worked as a journalist, as a college teacher in journalism and as a management consultant. These influences are reflected in many of his artistic practices, and translated into artistic expressions such as film, animations, photography and installations.

In almost all of Weistra's work, the emphasis is on aesthetics. Emphasising aesthetics is a way to seduce the viewer to watch. By simultaneously creating confusion and manipulating the viewer's perception, Weistra breaks through their passivity and questions seemingly rational and logical, often culturally determined, beliefs and opinions. Storytelling is an important element of Weistra's work, used as a means of questioning the dichotomy between ourselves and others. As a result, his work often leaves the viewer with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts.

Weistra was selected as one of the Best Emerging Artists at the NeuNow World Wide Festival for Graduates (2012). He received both the Stipendium for Emerging Artists (2015) as the Stipendium for Established Artists (2019), granted by the Mondriaan Fund, the government-funded Visual Arts Fund of the Netherlands.