House of Self: A Collective

Jennifer Leigh Harrison, a multidisciplinary artist and psychotherapist who specializes in trauma, addiction and suicide prevention, tells a story of healing parts of self, from fragmented to integrated, in a journey of mental health in visual form. 

November 14, 2024 - January 23, 2025

Opening: Thursday, November 14, 4-7pm for Capitol Hill Art Walk

Artist Talk: Tuesday, January 14, 2025, 1-2pm at Seattle Central College

"What I cannot or do not want to communicate with words, I share through painting. Each piece becomes clear to me as I am on the floor with it, in all its phases. I use my whole physical exertion which allows my paintings to be embodied states of the human condition.

I believe in the ability of art to challenge oppressive structure -- scraping and peeling back to reveal or to maintain what is buried or covered underneath and to create something entirely new.

Thriving, surviving and/or failure to do so are common undercurrents, as well as the fluidity of time and space. These are themes primary in my profession as a psychotherapist and social worker, and difficult or limiting to convey as a poet, but freeing to explore in visual form.

I work intuitively and without set intention, using movement as a vehicle.  I presently achieve this with acrylic paint and associated mediums, sometimes incorporating charcoal, ink, oil and wax. I manipulate materials with steel, cloth, knives, hard plastics, wood, and physical force -- rarely using traditional tools like paintbrushes.

My paintings are both refuge and liberating space from daily constraint and emanate both my subjective and physical experience of being in the world. My poems are lyrical, wandering, imagistic and ecologically reflective of parallels between body and land."

    - Jennifer  Leigh Harrison

++++

Jennifer Leigh Harrison is a multidisciplinary artist, psychotherapist, and social worker based in Seattle. As a self-taught painter, Harrison has shown at Van Der Plas Gallery in NYC and has been jury selected for international exhibits with honorable mention. She was awarded the annual first place prize for abstract art at Gage in 2023. Her art focuses on themes of movement and deconstruction in lyrical abstract form. Harrison's visually organic work is distinguished by improvised layers of stripped surfaces that house texture, color, both hidden and revealed. Her art is currently on display at various locations in Seattle.

A recipient of the Marian Coe Scholarship award for creative writing, Harrison’s work is internationally published in journals and anthologies. She is the author of the chapbook, Places We Left, published by Dancing Girl Press.

Main Image: Jennifer Leigh Harrison, The Following

Upper Left: Jennifer Leigh Harrison, Identity 

Middle Left: Jennifer Leigh Harrison, Sheets of Blue 

Lower Left: Jennifer Leigh Harrison, Housing A Tornado