Hand-signed by the artist, with title, date, and edition number inscribed in ink on an archival label affixed to the reverse side of the mounted photograph.
One wing has gone slightly ragged at its edge, the membrane no longer perfect, and that small flaw is where the picture turns serious. A dragonfly rests on an upturned palm, its yellow-striped body and glassy wings laid against pale skin, while behind the hand a plush field of golden velvet rises like a studio backdrop. The insect is real, the setting is arranged, and the meeting of the two is the whole event, staged with the deliberate calm of a still life composed for the camera.
Everything is keyed to a single warm register. The ochre of the upholstered seatback, the brown corduroy bolster along the bottom, the flush of blood under the skin all belong to the same autumn palette, so the dragonfly’s dark thorax and amber wings read as ornaments chosen to match. The hand does not grip; it offers, fingers loosely curled, wrist emerging from the lower left as if the sitter has been asked to hold very still. This is the directorial mode at its quietest, feeling produced without being fussed over.
Cig Harvey has built a contemporary practice out of exactly these encounters between a body and the natural world, gathered in books like You an Orchestra a Bomb and now held in American museum collections. She stages her wonder rather than pretending to catch it unawares, which is a very current way to make pictures. As an archival pigment print the image can hold its narrow band of golds and browns without muddiness, keeping the translucent wings legible as the frailest, most exact thing in the frame.
One wing has gone slightly ragged at its edge, the membrane no longer perfect, and that small flaw is where the picture turns serious. A dragonfly rests on an upturned palm, its yellow-striped body and glassy wings laid against pale skin, while behind the hand a plush field of golden velvet rises like a studio backdrop. The insect is real, the setting is arranged, and the meeting of the two is the whole event, staged with the deliberate calm of a still life composed for the camera.
Everything is keyed to a single warm register. The ochre of the upholstered seatback, the brown corduroy bolster along the bottom, the flush of blood under the skin all belong to the same autumn palette, so the dragonfly’s dark thorax and amber wings read as ornaments chosen to match. The hand does not grip; it offers, fingers loosely curled, wrist emerging from the lower left as if the sitter has been asked to hold very still. This is the directorial mode at its quietest, feeling produced without being fussed over.
Cig Harvey has built a contemporary practice out of exactly these encounters between a body and the natural world, gathered in books like You an Orchestra a Bomb and now held in American museum collections. She stages her wonder rather than pretending to catch it unawares, which is a very current way to make pictures. As an archival pigment print the image can hold its narrow band of golds and browns without muddiness, keeping the translucent wings legible as the frailest, most exact thing in the frame.