New Books for the New Year: Emerald Drifters
In her second Monacelli book the UK-born, US-based, photographer Cig Harvey shares her distinctive images of beauty, nature, sensory experience, and domestic life.
In a recent interview with the American curator Donna McNeil, Cig Harvey made an impassioned appeal for art’s role in opening oneself up. “If we feel more, I feel we will have more compassion,” she told McNeil. “I use all of the devices that I have as an artist to ask, ‘How can I get you to look? How can I get you to live more?”
Compost & Cake - Cig Harvey
Over the past two decades this British-born, US-based fine-art photographer has instilled a heightened sense of awe, beauty and compassion within thousands of art lovers, via her fantastical, narratively rich imagery, which is strongly rooted in the natural world.
Dark Cake - Cig Harvey
Raised on the rural Moors of Devon, England, Harvey received her MFA from Rockport College in 1999 and has since had her work featured across a wide range of media including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vice, Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Marie Claire Italia, and New York magazine. In 2021, Monacelli published Harvey’s monograph, Blue Violet, that went on to sell through four separate printings.
The Banquet - Cig Harvey
Now, Harvey and Monacelli are set to publish her follow-up book, Emerald Drifters. In this new book Harvey builds on the themes that her photographs explore, and which have garnered a dedicated and growing audience: nature, sensory experience, colour, domestic life, grief, and beauty.
Skyline & Lights - Cig Harvey
Emerald Drifters encapsulates these experiences, with photographs accompanied by simple watercolour charts and evocative texts—by Harvey—that synthesise her main ideas.
The Cherries - Cig Harvey
Harvey occupies a special niche in the photography world, appealing to such a broad spectrum because she is not afraid to engage and reflect the concept of beauty and richness in her work with a light touch.
Scout & the Peonies- Cig Harvey
Award-winning novelist and poet Ocean Vuong, an avid fan of Harvey’s, contributes a lovely essay on how she addresses this, writing that in Harvey’s hands, the concept of the beautiful “becomes the vehicle for self-knowledge.”
The Meadow - Cig Harvey
Harvey is represented by Robert Mann Gallery, New York; Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, Maine; Robert Klein Gallery, Boston; and Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles. Harvey was also the subject of a short documentary film, Eat Flowers, that has run on the international festival circuit and has qualified for Short Subject Documentary at the Academy Awards.
Wisteria - Cig Harvey
Emerald Drifters is bound in cloth and silkscreened in two colors with debossing. The cover image is a magical photograph of an enchanting eye peering through a field of sparkling glass beads.
If you’re quick, you can pre-order a signed copy here. The book ships in March.
