CIG HARVEY: EAT FLOWERS

Robert Klein Gallery is pleased to present EAT FLOWERS, a solo exhibition by renowned New England-based photographer Cig Harvey, showcasing a selection of her latest photographs from her recent monograph Blue Violet. This will be Cig Harvey’s fifth solo exhibition at Robert Klein Gallery. A reception for the artist and book signing will be held Saturday October 22, from 2-4pm.

Cig Harvey’s photographs in Blue Violet are a celebration of the natural world and the senses. With her magical use of color and wonder found in everyday life Harvey says, “I want my photographs to be sensory, like edible flowers, a visual taste. Color and flowers act as symbol and metaphor to access our senses.” One of the most extraordinary color photographers working today, Cig Harvey’s Blue Violet is a meditation on the procession of the seasons and sensory abundance. Plants, flowers, and our experience of the natural world are the threads that tie this unique body of work together. Exploring the five senses, Blue Violet takes the reader on a personal journey through nature and the range of human emotions.

Throughout her twenty-five-year career, Harvey’s work “has always incited a jolt, eliciting a reflexive gasp of awe, triggered by memory and emotion,” writes Jacoba Urist in the book’s afterword. “In this regard, Blue Violet is no exception,” she continues, “and readers may be forgiven for assuming this, her fourth monograph, is about botanicals.” Yet further viewing of the works reveals that Harvey’s photographs “despite being of flora, are about something else: something deeper and less tangible, more saddening and celebratory, something all-encompassing and inescapable, like color. Harvey’s photographs waltz with an essence of what it means to be alive, to witness dying, and to continue to live,” writes art critic Sabrina Mandanici in her review of Blue Violet.

‍

About the Artist

Cig grew up in Devon in South West England and became interested in photography as a young teenager while working in a darkroom. She received her MFA from Rockport College in 1999 and in 2005 was selected as one of Photo District News’s 30 emerging photographers to watch.
Harvey was an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University where she worked for ten years. Her first solo museum show was held at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo in 2012 in conjunction with the release of her first monograph, You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt Publishing, 2012). The book is a personal exploration of love, loss, longing and belonging. You Look At Me Like An Emergency sold out in all editions and was selected by Photo District News as one of the best books of 2012. It was widely reviewed by international publications, including The Independent and The Boston Globe.

Her second monograph, Gardening at Night (Schilt Publishing, 2015) was released to critical acclaim from Vogue and The New York Times, among others. The book is an exploration of familial love and a sense of place in the natural world, with seasons figuring prominently as metaphor. She was featured in The New York Times in an article titled “Why Can’t Great Artists Be Mothers?” rejecting the stereotype that motherhood and artistic dedication are at odds. In an interview with The Telegraph about the book, Harvey cited magical realism as a source of inspiration and said “I am very interested in finding magic in the real world and photography reminds me that this world is amazing.”

Harvey’s third monograph, You an Orchestra You a Bomb (Schilt Publishing, 2017) centers on our relationship with life itself, capturing moments of awe and sacred seconds that convey our fragile present. It was applauded in a number of international publications, including in The New York Times, BBC, Vice, New York Magazine, and Creative Review.
Harvey’s work has been exhibited internationally and is included in several collections including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, George Eastman Museum, and The Farnsworth Art Museum. Her work has been displayed at Paris Photo, Art Miami, and AIPAD every year since 2006. She had been a finalist for the BMW Prize and The Karl Lagerfield Collection at Paris Photo, The Clarence John Laughlin Award, The Taylor Messing Photographic Portrait Prize.

‍