Artist and Performer

A fourth generation artist and sexual adventurer, Lee was doomed to become an artist, even if he fought against it as often as possible. First his paternal grandmother and great-grandmother were both Who’s Who world artists, but he said no, I can resist it. Then his mother was a sketch artist and poet, but no, he could resist that too. Then his father handed him a camera and his school put him in a stage show at the age of seven. He gave in.

Photographer, performance artist, stage poet, installation creator, fire dancer, aerial rope performer, burlesque artist, stripper, drag queen, clown, painter, collaborative fashion designer and sculptural artist, Lee also looks at his historical work as a model as a form of performance all its own. He additionally directs shows from time-to-time, is the creator of a one man show, takes part in happenings, flash mobs, guerrilla art, MCing, and lives life in the name of art. In addition, his sexual life is part of an ongoing art project that has been being recorded in some way since 1991.

Photographer

Lee Harrington has been taking pictures for most of his life, with his first formal show in 2001. His passion comes in capturing the moments he encounters, from toy stores to gaming conventions, sex clubs to political protests, religious fervor to emotional turmoil.

Deeply inspired as a child by the work of Man Ray, Annie Liebovitz, and Charles Gatewood (who later became a friend), Lee’s photographic work is consumed with a passion for the people and places that he has been blessed to be surrounded by. Catholic kitsch, historical monuments, the fetish community, friends and lovers, the queer scene, landscapes and cityscapes have all had an undeniable effect on his artwork.

With his work having appeared in group and solo gallery shows (Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, Sugar Gallery Oregon, Femina Potens San Francisco, Sydney Leather Pride Arts Festival, and others), and his images appearing in a wide variety of magazines, books, and other publications (White Wolf Publishing, Asphodel Press, Secret Magazine, Slit Magazine, Penthouse, etc.), Lee enjoys sharing his unique artistic vision of the world as a photographer.

To learn more about his other inspirations as a photographer, what got him involved in photography as a child, and to see his current portfolio and list of publications, visit BlackBookArt.com.

Video

To take a peek into his amateur work as a videographer (and a handful of other projects), visit his YouTube profile, passionandsoul.

Lee Harrington was also part of Mollena Williams’ movie IMPACT, which won Best Experimental Film at CineKink 2013.

Model

For eight years before his gender transition, Lee Harrington was known as Bridgett Harrington, a female adult film actress, fetish and fashion model. An amazing outlet for his performance art, desire to dress up, and interest in creating a stir in the world, Lee enjoyed this period of his life quite a lot, creating films and modeling for photographs under this name from 1999-2007. Though Lee still models as a still life, photography and video model for friends and artists from time to time, his primary work as a model has passed.

Working on hundreds of projects during his tenure, Lee was one of the few women in his time to bring a curvy bodied aesthetic into the kinky porn world as a 5’11”, size 16 model. Appearing as a dominant woman, female slave, hardcore dyke, horny housewife, shy girl, crazy clown, slutty puppy, hardworking pony, pin-up queen, fetish diva, and transsexual man, and now living full time as a man (with occasional appearances as a drag queen), Lee has proven himself to be a true chameleon.

Performance & Visual Artist

Lee Harrington is a performance and visual artist whose sensibilities are informed by a mix of Tristan Tzara, Mumenchantz, Penn Jillette, Osada Eikichi, Gil Scott-Heron, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Ringling Brothers, and Annie Sprinkle, with a splash of busking sensibility and Judy Chicago thrown in for spice. His rope style is West Coast Jazz, his favorite color is love, and he believes strongly in the magic of the dance between audience and artist.

Available for hire for private events, university performances, festival shows, installation work or large venue performances, Lee’s work covers a wide variety of performance and visual styles:

Rope Shows (Aerial, Western, Japanese, Jazz)

• Drag Queen & King

• Burlesque

• Fabric and fiber arts installations

• Poetry Performance

• Motion Poetry

• Performance Painting

• Fire Spinning

• Body Modification and Hook Suspension

• Collaborative Workings with other artists

• … and more

You can enjoy examples of some of his many international shows on his Facebook Fan Page.

Lee’s One Performer Show, “Creature on a Quest,” debuted in Melbourne, Australia to a packed house at Gasworks Arts Park. This touching piece dives through Lee’s journey in gender, identity and sexuality, and in doing so exposes the personal journeys of the viewer through their own quests. “Creature on a Quest’s” tale is an opportunity for adult audiences to laugh, cry, stand in awe, and open up their own hearts to the journeys of life.

“For I stand before you, a creature on a quest… for within each question there it stands, this word, quest.” Thus begins Lee Harrington’s one person show, in which he begins as an academic lecturer, travels backwards and forwards through men’s leather culture, sex work, happy heterosexual marriage as a woman, to being a genderqueer teen and gender unsuspecting child, ending with audiences pondering the nature of gender, happiness, and relationships. Quest with Lee as he opens up his soul, his heart, his body, and his tales, walking at your side into the center of love. This show contains non-explicit nudity and adult themes.

“For I stand before you, a creature on a quest… for within each question there it stands, this word, quest. As if each time you ask me ‘hey what’s your story man’ or ‘who are you’ I must crawl through brambles to find you the truth, must journey into the underworld or open up the Akashic records to find something that might satisfy you…”

– The opening to “Creature on a Quest”