Jennifer Harrison

"I have painted most of my life but I'd more or less given up. I had thought about being an artist when I was a kid but people told me that was like wanting to be a fireman or an astronaut (as if those things are imaginary). I decided to go to school to maybe learn how to direct TV commercials (for some reason I thought that was a more realistic goal than painting) but I became very depressed & dropped out after the first year.

I spent several years on & off welfare, waiting tables and working in a video store. In 1998 the false teeth I'd gotten after a bike accident in high school broke and since I couldn't afford to fix them I became unemployable and went on welfare full-time. That year a friend of ours who had just opened a gallery invited me to do some paintings for a group show to give me something to do. I did 20 paintings (I had already painted some pictures of houses to give my mum as presents) and it was very satisfying. The show ran for two weeks and to my surprise completely sold out.

I spent a lot of years living in horrible apartments with no heat and no windows and I think houses were something to aspire to. I guess I got a little obsessed. Also, before I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to be an architect. I work with oils because it's the only way to get the colours I want, and canvas just because I enjoy the feel of it, the paint goes on smooth and it's responsive to my brush. I paint the houses I see around me or from pictures and I usually change the colours to ones that I like. I paint very slowly and methodically."