Photographer and writer Cig Harvey’s new work is a poetic, richly saturated exploration of life through pigment

Following her celebrated monograph Blue Violet (Monacelli, 2021), photographer Cig Harvey continues her personal study of sensory experience, focusing on the ephemeral nature of light, pigment, and vision. Her latest photographs are lush tableaux of her signature subjects – flora, cakes, domestic interiors, and the human figure in landscape – accompanied by prose vignettes on the science and art of color, written in her vibrant, intimate style. Featuring an afterword by award-winning novelist and poet Ocean Vuong, Emerald Drifters is a catalogue of pleasures and heartbreaks, and ‘an urgent call to live.’

Cig Harvey is a British-born, Maine-based artist who uses images and language to celebrate the beauty in the everyday. Her work has been featured in TheNew York Times, Vogue, and TheWall Street Journal. This is her fifth monograph.

Ocean Vuong is a writer, professor, and photographer. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling poetry collection Time Is a Mother, and the American Book Award-winning novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.