Sig harvey

In 2023, Harvey received the Visionary Award, a biennial award by Maine Media to recognize and celebrate artists making extraordinary contributions to the field of visual arts. She has also been a nominee for the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, the Santa Fe Prize, and the Prix Pictet.

In 2019, Harvey opened a mid-career solo exhibition of her work at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Maine.

Each book that I have published over the last fifteen years has had more and more text and perhaps I have a novel next.

A: And finally, describe your perfect day.

C: My perfect day is an ordinary Tuesday where nothing really happens. So basically it has to hit these things on the list: I’ve done something creative, I’ve been present for my family, I’ve done something for my mind and body, and walked my dog outside with my girlfriends.

The afterword of the book is an essay written by the critically acclaimed author Ocean Vuong, the perfect bookend to a personal, sensual, and exquisite monograph.

As the publisher writes: Emerald Drifters is an urgent call to live, a primal roar reminding us that time is the only currency. It’s always, make the work first, figure out what it’s saying, and then that becomes the book.

A: Do you work with a designer, or are most of the ideas, yours?

C: For both Blue Violet and Emerald Drifters, I worked with the designer, Jeanette Abink.

Before we talk about the book, can you share a little bit about yourself? My favorite smell? Throughout the course of this perfect Tuesday I’ll make photographs, go to yoga, walk the little dog Blue with my girlfriends, then pick Scout up from school and get her to practice. Rich in implied narrative, Harvey’s work is deeply rooted in the natural environment, and offers explorations of belonging and familial relationships.

The photographs and artist books of Cig Harvey, have been widely exhibited and remain in the permanent collections of major museums and collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; and the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

We don’t deserve them. Cig is interested in the connection between life and death, the experience of living. Following its publication in March 2025, her recent monograph, Emerald Drifters, has been featured by the Virginia Quarterly Review and The New Yorker.

©Cig Harvey, Apple Tree (Last Light), from Emerald Drifters, published by Monacelli/Phaidon

A: Congratulations on Emerald Drifters!

Harvey’s visual language encourages a more profound connection to the world and its inherent beauty, leaving us with an ache and a longing for more.

Fortunately much of her excavation is wrapped up in emerald satin, or could it be taffeta, and offered up in her new monograph, Emerald Drifters, published by Monacelli/Phaidon.

We have meetings two or three times a week during the heart of it all. As the years have progressed, the writing has become just as important as the images. Maine is a state of wonderful smells.

Books, where to start? In many ways that vignette about Scarlet is one of my favorites in the book. What’s your favorite smell? It was inspired by my friend Jesse.

Harvey’s work was exhibited at the Fotografiska Museum in Sweden in 2023 and then in New York and Estonia in 2024. I have so many.