Cig Harvey – You An Orchestra You a Bomb

Photographer: Cig Harvey (born Devon, UK & resides in Rockport, Maine)

Published by Schilt Publishing, (Amsterdam, NL), 2017

Essay: Vicki Goldberg

Text: English

Hardbound with linen covers, sewn binding, four-color lithography, printed by Offizin Scheufele, Stuttgart (DR)

Photobook designer: Deb Wood (Brooklyn, NY)

Notes: This is Cig Harvey’s third photobook in her introspective series that investigates her family, friends and the changing environment of mid-costal Maine. Perhaps the reason for the overlap of the photographic images between the various photobooks; that memories are overlapping during life’s experiences. She stages her family, friends and pets as well as weaving in poetic images of the rural landscape her family is enveloped in. There are many whimsical, if not outright strange, images, such as the open picture frame balanced on a women’s head, that hints at a lighthearted surrealism when this photograph is then paired up to a close up of a decorated frosted cake.

Many of Harvey’s photographs are tightly cropped and edited while her subjects are frequently truncated or slightly concealed. This is in part to create plenty of ambiguity to allow the readers imagination to freely roam. This visual effect is replicated in the design and layout of her book, with full bleed images that suggest that we are a witness to only a part of her narrative (her life). The editing and pairing of the photographs is exquisite, with repeating colors and forms or even perhaps the yin/yang contrast of a high-key photograph in the context of an adjoining dark image. A poetic and lyrical volume.

Cig Harvey was previously featured on TPBJ: Gardening at Night

Cheers, Douglas Stockdale