Cig Harvey's photos arrive in Italy for the first time. On display at the Cembalo Gallery in Rome

The photos of Cig Harvey (Devon, 1973), on view for the first time in Italy at the Cembalo Gallery from May 30 to July 6, are real visions, snapshots of her life in Maine. Although the subjects of her photos are familiar people and places, the shots depict them in the moment when they are almost unrecognizable to the artist. Harvey is a photographer who looks at the real but firmly believes there is in ’a particular light or the hue of a sunset something new to discover.’ Predominant in these shots is the belief that the photographic medium already captures an unexpected, magical component and that the use of color restores it in reality as we see it.

Whether her husband Doug, her daughter Scout, her friends, her neighbors and their daily lives are the subjects of these shots or pieces of a larger puzzle that returns a self-portrait of the photographer herself is a question that her work strongly emphasizes. For Cig Harvey, the image is a dichotomy between form and content that cannot be split, and photography does not reproduce but tells. The story is the succession of people from her beloved community and Maine, its seasons and the shadows of its branches, the verdant cloverleaves and colorful butterflies. There is a careful and thoughtful choice of what is placed before the lens but Cig Harvey works in the immediacy of what is happening, with the knowledge that anything can happen.

The act of photographing is heartfelt and unrepeatable, an expedient the artist uses, almost cathartically, to balance what is happening in her life. That is why these works, made in moments of serenity, can be at times dramatic, such as the image depicting a woman in a red coat in a small bed in an expanse of off-white snow or Scout’s compassionate gaze at the lifeless cormorant.

The works featured belong to different projects, including You Look At Me Like An Emergency (2012), Gardening at Night (2015), You an Orchestra You a Bomb (2017) and the most recent one, still in progress, Pink is a Touch. Red is a Stare.

For all information you can visit the official website of the Harpsichord Gallery.

Pictured is Cig Harley, Jesse on the Rocks (Fog), 2018

Cig Harvey's photos arrive in Italy for the first time. On display at the Cembalo Gallery in Rome

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