LauraLee K. Harris was born in Toronto but spent her formative years moving almost every year, immersing herself in a variety of art programs provided by the eight Public and High schools she attended. She studied art at OCAD and took drawing, painting portraiture at Fort Lauderdale Art School in Florida and also at the Forest Hill Art School. Harris began to seek her Anishinabe roots in 1996, when an Uncle introduced himself along with her ancestry. "I've always known but didn't know" she has said many times, finding this to be the inspiration for her work, and learning the knowledge about herself in cultural identity.

LauraLee hails from the Sioux, Cree, Chipewyan, Montagnais, Ojibwe, Assiniboine First Nations mixed with French, Irish and English. She explores crossing the boundaries of her life into art, creating work that has been termed 'Healing', she searches all her ancestry's cultures to understand herself through her work.

Harris has been exhibiting since the early 80's. Among her many solo exhibitions are a 'Retrospective ~ 1996-2008' at the Woodland Cultural Museum, Brantford, curated by Judy Harris; Messages Between Blue and Red at the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta, curated by Jackie Bugera and Across Boundaries at St. Joseph's College, Toronto. Her most recent exhibition nibi anishinabe kwe wag ~ Water and the First People's Women, opened at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound and curated by Virginia Eichhorn, was dedicated to the over 600 Anishinabe women missing or murdered in Canada. This exhibit was honoured with a supporting statement from the Chiefs of Ontario and a water blessing from a traditional Cape Croker's Water Keeper, engaging community.

Harris has participated in numerous important group exhibitions internationally including Ancestral Bonds: Portraits, a touring exhibition through Alberta's North; Image of Indigenous Freedom at The Arts Project in London, Ontario; Stories From the Circle, at the Hatathli Museum Dine College, in Tsaile, Arizona; Realms of Illusion, at the Agora Gallery in Soho, New York; and Beautiful at the Period Gallery, Omaha, Nebraska, curated by Lawrence Bradshaw, where her work was awarded the Award of Excellence and Special Recognition.

Harris' was Commissioned by the Buffalo Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority to do an installation called Mewinsha - Long Ago, creating 3 works on wood. These images on wood were transferred onto glass for the Buffalo/Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority Building/ Museum's windows, becoming the welcome into Canada.

Her groundbreaking work creating a unique media has been studied in numerous high schools employing her processes for their art Segment of the Grade 11 and 12 Canadian Curriculum, has also been studied in many Universities Internationally. And most recently, The Nanaimo Correctional Centre for the Aboriginal literacy program, finding the work "inspirational" in healing as well as instrumental in their literacy course development materials.

Harris's considerable influence as an artist, innovator, writer/poet and philanthropist was recently honoured in a documentary, produced by; earth magic media, a Dene owned Production Company based in Edmonton, highlighting Harris's work and story of her life.




Artist Talk and Poetry Reading at Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario