Jennifer Leigh Harrison’s ‘House of Self’ explores the mind layer by layer

The human mind is a puzzle. Not only for its mysteries and intricacies but for its multitude of pieces that form a cohesive design: the self. Seattle-based artist, social worker, and psychotherapist Jennifer Leigh Harrison calls the mind’s puzzle-like quality “parts of self.” During her Artist Talk on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at the M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery, Harrison explored the meaning behind her show “House of Self: A Collective,” an exhibition of abstract paintings that weave in journeys of mental health, healing, and the uncovering of the puzzle that makes up every one of us. 

Harrison’s work comes from the idea that all individuals have “parts of self that make up a cohesive whole,” says the artist, “parts of us that have learned to please others or be in society, parts of us that are more authentic to our way of being who we truly are.” From her background in clinical psychotherapy, Harrison explains that the ability to go inward and allow uncomfortable feelings to come to the surface—often parts that have attempted to protect the self from suffering—leads the way to mental health. “In a nutshell, this is what many of my paintings are about,” she explains to a room full of students and visitors. 

The artist guides the audience through pictures of her artistic process. “This is me with an electric sander,” she says, “because therapy is a lot of work, and in a way, it is like smoothing out some of the rough edges.” 

Behind the audience, on the gallery’s main wall, is a 48-by-60-inch wood panel. An acrylic and wax painting of a woman in a blue dress, standing with her fists clenched—the piece is titled “Notes on Hysteria.” Created for an exhibit on the history of hysteria in 19th-century French asylums, “it captures some of the lockdowns that can happen in the body as a result of trauma,” Harrison points out, adding that “a lot can be displayed and communicated in the body.” While the image embodies hysteria, the artist explains that it encompasses archetypal remnants of a wounded self and the collective intergenerational transmission of trauma. 

The clenched fists of the woman depict an immobility reaction in individuals who have experienced trauma and are often “stuck” in paralysis. “I describe it as housing a tornado, this feeling of holding so much in that creates a revved up feeling …  a constriction with nowhere to express or output,” explains the artist, “Sort of like having one foot on the gas and one on the brake.” 

The puzzle of self isn’t housed in an individual’s mind alone—many of its pieces are stored in the body. “Trauma is in the nervous system, not in the event,” Harrison recalls, “And in this painting, the woman is not being tortured, but she is stuck in the paralysis of the trauma event where she could not fight or flee.” In the image, there is “an inner surge to go outward into expression, to break free,” she shares, remarking that the woman’s hands are twisted out, clenching. 

According to Harrison, the human body inherently strives for balance. But with mental health struggles, the fight often becomes internal. “For me, this image represents anger swallowed whole—the fight mode unable to be expressed at the time of the trauma [that] has become stuck in the body. Depression is anger turned inward,” she says, citing Freud. 

With the idea that the human body and mind are irrevocably woven into each other, Harrison says that somatic practice in therapy, especially when working with those who have gone through trauma, includes “getting the person back into their body, trusting their primitive states,” so they can return to their inherent nature of trusting bodily instincts. When one is unable to use their instincts during a traumatic situation, “that trust can be broken,” and somatic practice works to repair it. 

Part of the repair of trust between the body and mind is a reconnection with the playful part of self, creating a sense of safety to access “the more difficult parts” of the process, Harrison continues. 

Why does play matter?

“When we are in a state of curiosity and play, we are more relaxed and engaged, less constricted,” she explains, “We have more ability to access our own innate healing.” Harrison takes a step forward, inviting the audience to observe the artwork in the room. “Does this look like playing to you? Is it playful? Imaginative? Violent? Destructive? … Maybe it just looks like an abstract painting?” she asks visitors—some nod in agreement, some turn their faces to the opposite side of the gallery, and some simply sit in introspective silence. “Let’s look at what’s underneath this image, ‘Notes on Hysteria,’” she decides, preparing to reveal the layers, both literal and figurative, of her artwork. 

According to Harrison, there is a lot of chaos in her paintings, not unlike the childhood drawings her brother “got in trouble for making on his bedroom wall and all over the kitchen floor when we were kids,” she laughs. She adds that the paintings are playful, not rule-bound, and an exploration of color, movement, and “maybe some confusion, too.” 

Like unboxing a brand-new 1,000-piece puzzle and spreading all its tiny pieces over the floor, looking at vulnerable parts of ourselves can be disorienting. And like putting together the first pieces of a complex puzzle, with some parts left forgotten under the carpet, therapy often uncovers what’s underneath the self’s defense mechanisms. “The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect,” she continues, adding that play is the basis for creativity and discovery of self. “A few things about how I play,” she starts, “and if it’s not obvious by now, it should be said [that] my paintings are inherently my own therapeutic outlet.” All of Harrison’s paintings are created on the floor, where she uses her entire body, raw emotion, and intuitive movement to produce images. “I don’t use traditional tools like paintbrushes, but instead use my hands, metal scrapers, electric sanders, and plastics to create layers,” she says, “This is one of the ways I stay connected to the exploratory parts of myself and not the more rigid, formulaic approaches that a paintbrush might induce.” 

Playing happens in the interface between the inner world and external reality. It takes place neither strictly in one’s imagination nor in the truly external world. Harrison explains that it happens in the space where one’s imagination is able to shape the external world without experiencing compliance, climax, or “too much anxiety.”

She then points to a different painting, one of the largest in the room. A 47-by-90-inch wood panel, completely covered in black paint, with scrapings that reveal a bright orange underlayer. The painting was created for Harrison’s biggest show to date, at a time when she was also about to get married. The piece is titled “Like I’m On Fire.” 

“The funny part is most people don’t know this painting has my handwriting scribbled all over it, in playful initials of myself and my husband, as if they were carvings on a tree or graffiti on a wall,” she shares. The original image was covered in black, and shapes were then carved out into a pattern. “I was playing, and not too concerned about where it was going.” 

The scrapings reveal Harrison’s inner world, shaping an image of many parts working together, suggestive of the intrapsychic realm. Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire called this the “space of freedom,” where imagination and play are spontaneous and not held accountable by the external. “We’re doing it for us, and that liberates our energy and gives [us] energy,” she explains. 

Other paintings in the exhibit have similar ideas. “Sheets of Blue” and “The Following” both have complexity underneath, “a whole other life” that has been integrated into the upper layer of the images. “What is underneath ‘Sheets of Blue’ is very similar to shapes I used to draw in grade school as a way to play with color and soothe my own mind. It’s messy, unformed, curious and scribbly.” 

The only piece in the show that is not layered is titled “Identity.” Much of the figure is chaotic, formless, and even dissociative, with misaligned limbs and markings. But like the other paintings, it has playful elements, “As to say, ‘even though this is all a mess, a blur, and undefined, I am still here, I got this!’ … For me, this carries a sense of ownership [over] the mess, and finding an organization in that state,” she completes. 

Finally, Harrison speaks about the largest artwork in the room, which covers an entire wall—floor to ceiling—in the gallery. Four panels, painted in light pink, with splashes of color and dark paint draping over it. Titled “ReWilding,” it required the most physical exertion the artist had put into a painting at the time of the show. Created for a different solo show, “Hysterie: Against Architectures of Confinement,” the piece explores sublimated rage in response to places of power and hierarchical systems that “continue to reinforce the marginalization of people and harm to our planet.” Its original layer was vibrant, and beautiful, but predictable, according to Harrison. “To destroy it was an experience of taking down an order of hierarchy. I had grown to really like it,” she tells the audience, “but then I covered it in pink.” 

Covering the painting’s underlayer was both an emotional and physical process for her. Scrapings are visible over the painting, in an “attempt to bring it back … There is also regret and a creative crisis,” she shares. The day Harrison covered up the original painting was so frustrating that the artist left the studio for a week. “I did not want to be around it. I had to take time to process my reaction,” she continues, explaining she sought to get out of her head—a place of control and rigidity—and reconnect with her body instead. 

Once back in her studio (and in her body), Harrison worked to understand how she would transform and revive something she “did not like.” She kept the scars, mistakes, and scrapes in the piece, but remarked that there would be “a rebirthing of sorts, a rewilding of the image.” The final image, the artist says, shows an element of curtains parting, of rain falling, of energy of scattered renewal coming in—much like the self reinventing itself after trauma, after uncovering vulnerable parts. There is fluidity, and an interruption of darkness with the scars at the top of the painting, with color flowing over them in droplets, a conduit where fluid runs down. “Conduit images are about movement,” the artist completes, “Healing is entirely about movement and embracing change.”

The idea behind Harrison’s work, both in her paintings and clinical work, is not the restoration of one’s original state, but the transformation and integration of parts of the self that are wounded, messy, and confused, into a cohesive, beautiful, and lively whole. It is the discovery of a new way of being through the act of taking back layers, “to get back to some of the state of origin, that is never quite what it was ever again—but something more wise, more worn, more beautiful in all its experience.”