By Suzanne Révy
In China, red represents luck, happiness and prosperity; in fact, for many, it is the color of love. Indeed, red is the color of the life sustaining blood that pulses through our bodies, and it is the color that envelopes You an Orchestra, You a Bomb, Cig Harvey’s solo exhibit at the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston. The show is on view at their Newbury Street location until January 3rd, then will move to the gallery’s SOWA location at Ars Libri on Harrison Avenue from January 5th through January 31st, 2018.
Harvey presents photographs from her recently published book, You an Orchestra, You a Bomb as dye-sublimation prints on aluminum. They appear to emanate light as if they are illuminated from behind. These highly polished metal prints serve to accentuate the artist’s masterful use of warm and cool colors in her emotionally layered compositions.
Entering the gallery, the viewer will look left toward the back wall, which is painted red and adorned with ten small prints that appear to float. Above these intimate prints is a hand written neon sign with the book’s title. Larger prints flank the sides, including the particularly impactful Birds of New England, 2017 with its surprising human eye revealed through a sculpture of preserved birds.
On looking back toward the entrance of the gallery, Harvey’s magnificent composition, Red Cloak (2015), will be the last image one might encounter before leaving. Warmth suffuses its variety of hues, with a charged sense of longing in the pale, outstretched arm of a child cloaked and camouflaged in a red velvet chair. She seems to be embracing the chair as if it is her life-giving mother. In this exhibit – and on a more personal scale in her book – Harvey carries viewers along an impassioned, glowing journey through the color spectrum.
Suzanne Révy is a fine art photographer who creates visual diaries of her family’s life and is a Contributing Writer to What Will You Remember?
For more information about this exhibit, go to: https://www.robertkleingallery.com/
Copies of Harvey’s book (some signed!) are available at Robert Klein Gallery. It can also be purchased online (http://www.cigharvey.com/books/) and through a link to our recent book review.
To see our book review of You an Orchestra, You a Bomb go to: https://whatwillyouremember.com/photobooks-by-mark-alice-durant-teju-cole-alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-cig-harvey/