The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Bio
Jen P. Harris (b. 1977, she/they) is an artist, designer, and organizer based in Cleveland following significant stints in Los Angeles, New York, and Iowa City. Her work across media asks: how can art help us sense our entanglement, with each other and with a world that is never still and is always surprising? Jen’s practice has expanded from figurative painting exploring queer representation into painting-based installation, performance, publications, community projects, and writing, contributing to public discourse around the role of artists and creative communities in recalibrating our ability to respond to civilizational crisis. Her ongoing commitment to painting alongside collective practice stems from an obsession with spatial perception, fascination with the intelligence of the hand, and delight in the emergence of unexpected forms through rigorous, constraints-based physical processes. Her recent collage-based works explore the transformative potential of “unmaking” through literal deconstruction and reconfiguration of painted material.
Jen currently writes for The Coastal Post, an artist-run publication that aims to illuminate studio practice. Previously, she founded Black Sheep Heap, a graphic arts studio and screen printing shop based in Brooklyn, NY, which she directed for seven years (2005-2012). In 2010 she organized the Hudson Incubator, a house-based salon for artists and writers in Hudson, NY; in 2016 she co-curated Nasty Women in Iowa; and in 2019, co-organized Deep Adaptation for Artists, a community-led learning group hosted by NAVEL in Los Angeles. Jen is a recipient of a 2012 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting, as well as grants from the Puffin Foundation, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Iowa Arts Council. Her paintings and installations have been exhibited in venues across the United States. Among other publications, The New York Times, Columbia Journal, Guernica Magazine, CultureCatch, and The Philadelphia Inquirer have featured her work. She has been a visiting artist at over a dozen institutions and served on the Board of Public Space One in Iowa City.
Jen holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Painting from Queens College of the City University of New York.