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 Harvey is represented by Robert Mann Gallery (New York), Jackson Fine Art (Atlanta), 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 Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York); New York Public Library; 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). An installation of Cig's work is part of In Bloom, a contemporary exhibit exploring the theme of nature at the Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm. This show will travel to Fotografiska, New York, and Tallinn in 2024.
Cig Harvey 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. In 2023, Eat Flowers, a documentary film about Cig by River Finlay, premiered at prestigious film festivals worldwide winning awards for Best Documentary short.