CIG HARVEY

Cig Harvey is a British born artist and writer, who lives in Maine, USA, working in large-format color photography and poetry, whose practice seeks to find the magical in everyday life. She uses both images and language to explore sensory experiences and elevate the everyday. Rich in implied narrative, deeply rooted in the natural world, her work is devoted to the topic of what it is to feel.

She has published four sold out books: You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt Publishing, 2012); Gardening At Night (Schilt Publishing, 2015); You An Orchestra You A Bomb (Schilt Publishing, 2017); Reveal (with Andrea Modica & Debbie Fleming Caffrey; Yoffy Press, 2020); and Blue Violet (Monacelli / Phaidon, 2021).

Cig is represented by Robert Mann Gallery (New York), Jackson Fine Art (Atlanta), Robert Klein Gallery (Boston), and Bildhalle (Switzerland & The Netherlands). She has exhibited worldwide including at Paris Photo, Art Miami, and AIPAD (New York) for the past fifteen years.

Her photographs and books are in the permanent collections of many museums across the world including The Library of Congress (New York); Yale University; Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, Texas); the Farnsworth Art Museum (Maine, USA); and the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House (New York).

Cig had her first solo museum show at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Norway (2012), and a mid-career solo exhibition at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine, USA (2019). She was awarded the Prix Virginia Laureate (2018), and the Maine in America Award by the Farnsworth Art Museum (2021). She was a nominee for the John Gutmann Fellowship, the Santa Fe Prize, the Prix Pictet, and a finalist for the BMW Prize, the Estee Lauder Collection, the Karl Lagerfeld Collection at Paris Photo, the Clarence John Laughlin Award, and The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Most recently she was the JP Morgan Laureate at Paris Photo 2022.

Cig featured in Ross McDermott’s documentary Return To Cuba – In The Footsteps of Walker Evans (2016), of her endeavor with fellow photographers Mark Klett, Abe Morell, Sam Abell, and Greg Gorman to retrace Walker Evans’s footprints and photographs in Cuba. She is currently the subject of a new short-film Eat Flowers - The Words & Photographs of Cig Harvey by River Finlay which will premiere in 2023.

Cig Harvey lives in a farmhouse in Maine with her husband Doug and daughter Scout. The slow passing of time and the natural surroundings of her rural home has made her alert to the magic in the mundane.

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

2022

• Eat Flowers, Bildhalle Gallery, Zurich, (CH)

• Stories, FAS44 with Robert Mann Gallery, Las Vegas (USA)

2021

• Blue Violet, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, (USA)

• Eat Flowers, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, (USA)

2020

• Eat Flowers, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, Maine, (USA)

2019

• Eating Flowers, Oqunquit Museum of American Art, (USA)

• Think, See, Make , Listen, Galleria Del Cembalo, Rome, (IT)

2018

• You an Orchestra You a Bomb, Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, (USA)

2017

• Holding The Blue, Huxley Parlour, London, (UK)

• You an Orchestra You a Bomb, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, (USA)

• You an Orchestra You a Bomb, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, (USA)

2016

• Gardening at Night, Photo-Eye gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, (MEX)

2015

• Gardening at Night, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, (USA)

• Gardening at Night, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, (USA)

• Gardening at Night, Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, (USA)

• Gardening at Night, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, Maine, (USA)

2013

• You Look at Me like an Emergency, Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, (USA)

2012

• You Look at Me like an Emergency, Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway, (NOR)

Group Exhibitions & Documentaries (Selection)

2021

• Women of Vision: Maine in America Award, Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland, Maine, (USA)

• Into Action, Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA), Rockland, Maine, (USA)

2018

• Retour a la Ligne, Musee de l’Eysees, Lausanne, Switzerland: Photographs from the Collection of Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Fall (CH)

• Memory: Mystery, Magic, and Make-believe, University of Texas, Dallas. Ms. Anna Fritzel, Ph.D, curating for the Comer Collection (USA)

2017

• Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Museum, London, (UK)

• On Photography, Johnson State College, Vermont, (USA)

• Contrasts: Seven Unique Visions in Photography, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, Massachusetts, (USA)

2016

• Cuban Footsteps: Five Diverse Photographers Follow in the Footsteps of Walker Evans: Mark Klett, Abe Morell, Cig Harvey, Sam Abell and Greg Gorman, Feature-Length Documentary.

• The Gender Show, Fundación Canal, Madrid, (ES)

2015

• Picturing Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, (USA)

• Pairings: Selections from the Bruce Brown Collection, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine, (USA)

• Highways & Byways, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Portland Public Library, Maine, (USA)

2014

• The Gender Show, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, (USA)

2012

• Rarefied Light, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Alaska, (USA)

Monographs

• 2021 Blue Violet (Monacelli Press)

• 2021 Eat Flowers (Two Ponds Press)