Jen P. Harris

Jen P. Harris (b. 1977, Virginia, United States) is a process-driven artist working with painting, drawing, textiles, and installation. Their collage-based works on panel and colored pencil drawings on graph paper start with prints and drawings sourced from European and American archives, which they copy, cut, rotate, stitch, obscure, embed, and otherwise mark and alter to reveal the instability of received narratives and forms. Recent works combine weaving and painting to form hybrid objects that question the conventions of both disciplines.

Harris holds degrees from Yale University (BA, Studio Art 1999) and Queens College of the City University of New York (MFA, Painting, 2008), and completed additional studies at the Yale-Norfolk Summer School of Art (1998). Their work has been the subject of a dozen solo exhibitions and appeared in over 50 group shows in nonprofit and commercial venues throughout the US, garnering press in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, CultureCatch, VelvetPark, The Korea Times (Los Angeles), and The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). Recent solo exhibitions include edgar gallery, Los Angeles and CSPS Hall, Cedar Rapids, IA. Recent group shows include Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn; Abigail Ogilvy, Los Angeles; Abattoir, Cleveland, OH; and LADIES’ ROOM, Los Angeles. Upcoming shows include Zygote Press, Cleveland, OH (Jun-Aug, 2024).

Harris is the recipient of a 2023 Satellite Fund Grant from SPACES (Cleveland, OH), a 2012 Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (New York, NY), and grants from the Puffin Foundation, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Ohio Arts Council, and Iowa Arts Council. She has been artist-in-residence at Praxis Digital Weaving Lab, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Vermont Studio Center, among others. Raised in Baltimore, Harris currently lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.