On one of the coldest days in February, even by Vermont standards, I stepped inside the Burlington City Arts gallery to find my senses stirred by the dramatic, enigmatic and visually seductive semi-abstract landscape paintings of Bunny Harvey. I forgot about the -7 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The exhibit consists of close to 20 recent large-scale oils on canvas as well as two works on paper made for this event. For those who have followed Harvey’s prolific four-decade-long career, it will be evident that her works here have a new level of intensity that invite the viewer to engage, connect and discover a unity with the natural. world beyond the scope of spoken narrative
Many of the landscapes suggest a body of water — a stream, a creek, maybe a pond, gleaming in sunlight or shrouded in fog on an overcast day. These watery surfaces anchor the composition. Motion and energy in these paintings come from what appears to be an overlay of daring gestural brushstrokes — a zig or zag here, or crosshatch lines there — in vibrant hues scattered over an often-muted ground. For Harvey, these represent the elements in nature that are never still — a breeze or sudden gust, the flutter of leaves, the flight of a bird from a branch, the buzz of a bee, the rustle of dry grass from a scurrying creature. In nature, there is never stillness, but there is the ever-vibrant sign of flow and change. Indeed, if one looks long enough, the senses will be awakened, not only to the temporal, but to sounds, smells and even the taste of nature. And yet, the viewer is standing before a two-dimensional canvas.
Harvey spent many of her childhood summers in Tunbridge, Vermont, where her Manhattanite family had a 200-year-old house. She was three when she first came to the Green Mountains. Harvey attributes these early experiences with the natural environment to her oneness with her painting. She still has the house and an adjoining building that serve as her two Vermont studios. Harvey also has a studio in Providence, Rhode Island, where she lived while teaching at Wellesley College for 40 year.