Photographs and artist books by Cig Harvey (British, b. 1973) have been widely exhibited and reside in the permanent collections of major museums and collections worldwide. A native of Devon, England, Harvey sees her photographs as vignettes that depict daily life in all its complexities. In addition to self-portraits, Harvey makes pictures of family and close friends to better understand their relationships. Her photographs are an attempt to legitimize her moments of uncertainty and to visually celebrate times of elation, when we are reminded that the world, in all its complexities, can be mind-blowingly beautiful. She uses color, gesture and space to seduce the imagination.
Harvey was a recent finalist for the BMW Prize at Paris Photo and the Prix Virginia, an international photography prize for women. Her first solo museum show was held at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Norway, in the spring of 2012, coinciding with the release of her monograph, You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt Publishing, 2012). With her vibrant photographs and startlingly honest writing, Harvey transforms quotidian experiences that reference time and place, creating totems that mark key places in her life.
Harvey lives in a farmhouse in the Midcoast of Maine with her husband Doug (who has the profile of an emperor on a Roman coin), their wayward daughter Scout, and Scarlet the dog (the original baby). She was an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University for ten years, but recently took a leap of faith to devote her life to purely making things. She tries to do this every day, and then pretends to clean up the mess she’s made with varying degrees of success. Her work is in the collections of International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, Hamilton, Bermuda; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; the Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME; Bowdoin College, Special Collections, Brunswick, ME; and University of Washington, Special Collections, Seattle, WA.
Cig Harvey is represented by Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.