Bio

Born in 1929 in Dallas, Georgia, Bessie Harvey was the seventh child in a family of thirteen children. She married at the age of fourteen, soon moved to Tennessee with her husband, and then had eleven children of her own, whom she struggled to provide for. As a relief from the rigors of motherhood and an abusive, alcoholic husband, she would stay up late at night creating sculptures using found tree roots and branches, stones, her own hair, Mardi Gras beads, enamel paint, glitter, shells and anything else she could find for free. She primarily relied on forms found in nature as a starting point, but her own visionary impulses then took over and led to highly unique figurative assemblages. She often "meditated" during the creative process and through her visionary art made communion with God. In her own words, “This is Bessie Harvey, folk artist, so I'm called. I'm really not the artist. God is the artist in my work; nature and insects, they shape my work for me, because they belong to God. I belong to God, and all things belong to God, because it's in his Word that all things are made to him, that without him there's not anything made. I know that my art is a peculiar kind of an art, but he says that his people are peculiar people and I just want to give all the praise and glory to him for my work.” Despite having had a difficult life, Bessie Harvey (1929-1994) is now regarded as a highly influential self-taught Black artist. Her sculptures are included in many museum collections including The Smithsonian Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, The High Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and many others.

CV

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2024

Healing Machine, SHRINE, Los Angeles, CA

2023

Death of an Outsisder, SHRINE, Los Angeles, CA

2020

Good Luck, SHRINE, New York, NY

2018

Yard Show, Curated by Marcus Jahmal, SHRINE, New York, NY

Annex, SHRINE, New York, NY