Artist, activist and academic – when it comes to expressing his views, particularly leading the call for a change in attitudes around equity and inclusion for members of the 2SLGBTQ community, Spencer J. Harrison’s voice and influence has soundly resonated in a very big way.
Having attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Queen’s University (1987), a Master of Arts from Trent University (2003) and, most recently, his Doctor of Philosophy from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (2014), Harrison, in 2014, completed The Freak Show: A Painted Autoethnographic Exploration of Growing Up Gay in Rural Ontario in the 1960s – Canada’s first painted doctoral dissertation.
Positioning artists in the academic world as knowledge creators, Harrison’s art is exhibited and collected across Canada and beyond the country’s borders. His art has been referenced in the House of Commons as part of the effort to change more than 70 laws to provide more inclusion for the 2SLGBTQ community.
Harrison was the founding director of Camp fYrefly, a Trent University-based leadership retreat for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, two-spirited, intersexed, queer, questioning and allied youth. Under his leadership, the camp combined arts-based and Indigenous knowledge and practices to help youth build strong positive identities, moving away from self-harm issues in the process.
Exhibitions of Harrison’s work date back several years, his thought-provoking work displayed at galleries in Toronto, Belleville, Milton and Ottawa. Confirmed for this winter at the Art Gallery of Peterborough, at which Spencer is the artist mentor for youths planning to pursue the medium at the post-secondary level, is his newest exhibition, Does It Give You The Gay.
For more than 12 years now, Harrison has taught at Toronto’s Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University, specializing in courses that explore subject matter and the value of the makers of their crafts. During his time at OCAD, he has been honoured with the Non-Tenured Teaching Award and the BLG Equity Teaching Award. Earlier, he served as artist-in-residence at Trent University in 1994-1995.