REPURPOSED (2014)
Landscape paintings of Croft Castle painted over and used to create decorative frames for mirrors. Repurposed, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Twelve glass mirrors with wooden frames and oil paint, overall: 80 x 84” (203.2 x 213.36 cm).
PICTURESQUE RUINS (2014)
Paintings based on postcards of ruins. Picturesque Ruins, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Oil on wood panel, 48 x 36” (122 x 91.5 cm). Disrupted Ruins, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Watercolor, gouache, varnish on wood frame and archival oval mats, Plexiglas, 4 panels, each: 16 x 20” (40.6 x 20.8 cm), overall: 46 x 38” (116.8 x 96.5 […]
PICTURESQUE MAZES (2014)
Paintings based on postcards of mazes or maze-like things. Clockwise:Puzzle Garden Postcard, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Oil on wood panel, 22 x 35” (55.9 x 90 x 5 cm). Photograph: Etienne Frossard.Desert Maze Postcard, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Oil on wood panel, 48 x 30” (122 x 76.2 x 5 cm). Photograph: Etienne Frossard.Skull Maze, Ellen Harvey, 2014. […]
THE UNLOVED (2014)
This painting of Bruges, Belgium focuses not on its much loved and much painted medieval architecture but on its less known status as a functioning container port city. The painting is based on satellite photographs that follow the canal link between the ancient city and the modern port. All waterways in the paintings are inlaid […]
LOBBY PAINTING, 2014
A painting for a lobby showing the view from the building’s roof at the moment of the building’s renovation. Lobby Painting, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Oil on 9 aluminum panels, overall: 9 x 15’ (2.74 x 4.57 m). Photograph: Jeff Harris.
YOU ARE HERE (with Jan Baracz) (2013)
A blueprint-colored digitally manipulated aerial photograph of the flight approach to the Philadelphia International Airport, with a red arrow indicating the final destination of travelers, is sandblasted into forty-eight windows of the airport’s new Terminal F allowing travelers to locate themselves and their flight experience. A collaboration with Jan Baracz. Commissioned by the City of […]
REPEAT (2013)
A superfluous church in Bossuit, Belgium, originally built to replace a church destroyed in World War I, was made into an artificial ruin to create a new outdoor public space for a village. The new terrazzo floor represented both the elements that were removed during demolition (pillars, ceiling arches, altars etc.) and the shadow of […]
MATHEMATICAL STAR (2013)
A floor mosaic for the new Marcy Plaza in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY. The design was based on a quilt design, sometimes called the “mathematical star”, used by a variety of communities. The “patterns” in the quilt’s diamonds are derived from photographs of 18 historically significant sites in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The sites were selected by Community Board […]
ALIEN SOUVENIR STAND (2013)
A souvenir stand dispensing hand-painted souvenirs and guides to the ruins of Washington D.C. for future extra-terrestrial visitors to Earth when the planet has become an uninhabited waterless desert. The alien visitors become the last in a long line of civilizations to fall for the charms of the classical and neoclassical ruins that punctuate the […]
PILLAR-BUILDER ARCHIVE (2013 – )
A collection of over 4,000 postcards of neoclassical and classical buildings and ruins that can be variously arranged to create fictional narratives of architectural influence, appropriate to the site in which it is shown. The collection was originally exhibited as part of Ellen Harvey: The Alien’s Guide to the Ruins of Washington D.C. at the […]
REFLECTING FOREST (2013)
A painting of a forest reflected in a pool that reflects the viewer in turn. Reflecting Forest, Ellen Harvey, 2013. Twenty-four glass mirrors with wooden frames and oil paint, overall: 11′ 8 1/2″ x 6′ 4 1/4″ (3.57 x 1.94 m).
REFORESTATION (2013)
A hand-made mirror in the newly renovated Internal Revenue Office engraved with a drawing of the ruined office reclaimed by nature. Reforestation (installation view at the Internal Revenue Office, Andover, MA), Ellen Harvey, 2013. Mouth-blown glass, sandblasted and filled with opaque ceramic melting colors, laminated to industrial float glass mirrors, 161 x 316” (4.09 x […]
FOSSILS (2013)
Carved marble rocks with “fossilized” computers for the courtyard of the Internal Revenue Service. Fossils (installation views at the Internal Revenue Service, Andover, MA), Ellen Harvey, 2012. Commissioned by Art in Architecture. Marble, large sculpture: 33 x 98 x 49” (84 x 249 124 cm), pie-shaped sculpture: 31 x 66 x 36” (79 x 168 […]
VANITY (2012)
A thwarted vanity table in which it is not possible to admire oneself. Vanity, Ellen Harvey, 2012. Hand-engraved mirror, table, gesso, lightbox, Plexiglas, 60 x 30 x 15″ (152 x 76 x 38 cm).
MIRROR BALLS (2010 – 2014)
Paintings of the world reflected in an old-fashioned garden mirror ball. Left / Top: Inside/Out Mirror Balls, Ellen Harvey, 2014. Oil on two aluminum panels, each: 30 x 30″ (76.2 x 76.2 cm). Right / Bottom: Mirror Ball, Ellen Harvey, 2010. Oil on wood panel, 30 x 30″ (76.2 x 76.2 cm).
EX/CHANGE YOUR LUCK (2012)
Seventy-seven different charms, modeled in wax and cast in bronze, were offered to patrons of a Las Vegas casino in exchange for their own unsatisfactory lucky charms, which were then displayed and offered for further exchanges. All transactions were documented with Polaroids on which participants were invited to write comments. Two sets of seventy-seven bronze […]
ARCADE/ARCADIA (2011 – 12)
From the outside, the viewer sees an old-fashioned aluminum fairground sign spelling out “ARCADIA” leaning against a skeletal shack. Upon entering, the viewer finds himself inside a mirrored panorama of a down-at-heels seaside resort. The 34 mirrors are mounted onto thin light boxes so that the engravings appear as lines of light floating on the […]
THE NUDIST MUSEUM (2010-2)
A series of copies in oils of all 56 nudes in the Miami Beach Bass Museum’s collection. The copies were based on documentation of the original paintings and sculptures that had been cropped to focus on the nude. Everything other than the nude was painted in monochrome with the painting spilling out onto the frame. […]
THE NUDIST MUSEUM GIFTSHOP (2012)
A companion installation for the Nudist Museum that focuses on the nude in the applied arts. The paintings are in “departments” grouped by subject matter (knives, lamps, ashtrays, mugs etc.). The subjects of the paintings were found by searching for “nude” on Ebay and eliminating all fine art objects. The Nudist Museum Giftshop, Ellen Harvey, […]
NEW YORK NUDES (2012)
Every nude postcard from New York’s contemporary art museums, drawn on to highlight the nude bits and displayed in a custom case. New York Nudes, postcards, archival ink, custom-made plexi-glas case, 39 in (99 cm) x 35 in (89 cm), Ellen Harvey, 2012. Photography: Etienne Frossard.
VENUS VS SEBASTIAN (2010, 2012)
The battle of the two great nude archetypes: gay vs. straight, male vs. female, Christian vs. pagan, masochist vs. sadist. Venus vs. St. Sebastian, Ellen Harvey, 2012. Oil on two framed wood panels, 11 x 13” (28 x 33 cm) each. Photograph: Etienne Frossard. Venus vs. St. Sebastian, Ellen Harvey, 2010. Two framed watercolors on […]
SEE-THROUGH FOREST (2011)
An installation of paintings for a timbered framework house in Germany. The spaces between the painted panels reproduce the framework on the outside of the house. The paintings show the forest immediately outside. See-Through Forest, Ellen Harvey, 2011. Oil on 77 plywood panels, overall: 40’10” x 31’ 9” (12.45 x 9.68m). Photography: Ellen Harvey Studio.
THE FOREST OF PARNASSUS (2011)
A series of portraits of the oldest inhabitants of UCSF’s Parnassus campus: its trees. A commission for the University of California San Francisco. The Forest of Parnassus (installation and two panels), Ellen Harvey, 2011. Oil on 28 aluminum panels, each panel: 30 x 30” (76 x 76 cm), can be variously installed. Photography: Ellen Harvey […]
INTERNET REFORESTATIONS (2010)
Trees painted in watercolors over images of deforestation taken from the web Internet Reforestations, Ellen Harvey, 2010. Watercolor over archival inkjet on archival paper, 8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4) each. Photography: Ellen Harvey Studio.