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Jan Harrison

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Biography
My work has been a lifelong journey. As a child I was closely connected with animals, and developed a deep kinship with them. Identifying with animals has helped me to have empathy with the life force, and to express the complex experience of what it is to be here as a flesh and blood being.

Since the earliest drawings in the 1980�s I have been engaged in a developing interaction between the animal nature and the human psyche. Entities interrelate, one being becoming another being. Mysterious and intimate characters act within an inner landscape, similar to dreams.


The Corridor Series #34
The Corridor Series #34
The Corridor Series #28
The Corridor Series #28
The Corridor Series Primate #31
The Corridor Series Primate #31


Physicality is integral to my work. The use of pastels, wax, and clay enables me to caress the surface with my hands. Beings emerge and evolve through touching the surface of the paintings or working with the wax or clay. Coming from the body's sensual/spiritual desires, felt in the bones and cells, a metamorphosis happens as I caress the surface.

Recurring themes are both autobiographical and universal, having to do with grief, joy, pain, death, rebirth, rejection, humor, brutality, sensitivity, anger, love, identity, power and vulnerability. I identify with the animals in my work, and feel as if their bodies were my own.

Since 1978, I have spoken and sung in �Animal Tongues,� which has been performed and included in installations.

Jan Harrison


"Jan Harrison beckons viewers to embark on a voyage. But instead of leaving home to explore exotic sites and sounds, we are guided into equally foreign territory�our innermost selves. We journey downward, circumventing our personalities and our individual life stories, passing our accumulated recollections and our acquired attitudes, crossing beyond spoken and written histories and even beyond human ancestry. Ultimately we disembark in the wondrous galaxy we carry within each gene. Its constellations are measured in units of shudders, murmurs, gasps and shivers"

Linda Weintraub, excerpt "Genus Fusion." (See www.janharrison.net for link to complete essay.)
I work to experience the mystery, purity and sacred/profane spirit of the animal nature, something we often overlook as humans, as we live in a technology driven, industrialized society.

A myth which involves both knowledge and innocence, darkness and light, has always been central to my work. The myth is intuitively known in my body, and not based on recorded mythology. Through acknowledging the "shadow" I discover a world within ourselves that is spiritually connected to animals as �Other.�
The Corridor Series Owl #2 Private Collection
The Corridor Series Owl #2 Private Collection
Kingston, NY
New York
North America
T: 1 845 3382730
F: 1 845 3382730
M: 1 845 8533997
w: http://janharrison.net



 Web Links
PAJ Journal of Performance and Art
Primary Website for Jan Harrison
Wikipedia page
AskART Biographical Information
Video of Jan Harrison Performing in Animal Tongues
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