Using all of my senses I allow myself the luxury of getting lost in seeing, in direct observation, and thoughtful reconsideration of spontaneous sensual input merged with the exciting pleasure of invention.
— Bunny Harvey
INTRODUCTION
Worlds Within Worlds features the captivating paintings of Bunny Harvey. Evocative and seductive, Harvey’s semi-abstract landscapes exist as distinct places and as extensions of her inner world. Inspired by the rural landscape of central Vermont as well as the urban environs of New York and Rome, Harvey is intensely engaged with contextualizing her thoughts and senses within the natural environment.
Harvey takes daily walks through nearby woods, fields, city streets, parks and vacant lots. According to the artist, she “memorizes the odor of wet cement or woodland paths, listens carefully to crows, to the constant music of grasshoppers, and the background voices of city traffic.” As she walks, Harvey absorbs and learns but does not actively plan her paintings. Through her senses, she moves from intense observation of her exterior surroundings to reflections that are introspective and internal. For Harvey, her environment is anything but peaceful—rather, it is noisy, insistent, and full of surprises—even those that are dark or menacing.
Returning to her studio, Harvey merges the act of painting with sensory memories of the landscape and ongoing topics that interest and fascinate her—how time is measured, the geologic history of a place, contemporary events, or the survival tactics of plants and people. Working intuitively, and through the vocabulary of her expressive brushwork, the artist describes unseen elements—the calls of specific birds, the reassuring scent of mown hay, or the noises of the city. Within each painting, distinctive marks and patterns animate the surface with lines, shapes, and washes of color. Her paintings are both spontaneously invented and thoughtfully structured.
Worlds Within Worlds features Bunny Harvey’s immersive, large-scale oil paintings and more intimate works on paper and panel. BCA is also pleased to debut a new iteration of Harvey’s ongoing video project, Walking with Water, along with several paintings created specifically for this exhibition including City with Blue Trees and Singing Breathing Forest
Heather Ferrell, Curator and Director of Exhibitions
CHECKLIST
1 City with Blue Trees, 2024
Flashe, pastel, and charcoal on paper
22 x 30 in
30 ½ x 37 ½ (framed size)
2 Duet: Hidden Dwellings, 2019 oil on canvas
48 x 48 in each
3 East Harlem Reverie, 2023 oil on linen
62 x 36 in
4 Fifty-Four Years of Rome!, 2024
Flashe, pastel, and charcoal on paper
22 x 30 in
30 ½ x 37 ½ (framed size)
5 Night Rose, 2019 spray paint and oil on paper
22 x 30 in
30 ½ x 37 ½ in
6 Singing Breathing Forest, 2024 oil on canvas
48 x 48 in
7 A Solid Buzzing, 2024 oil on canvas
36 x 72 in
8 Spring Voices, 2019 oil on canvas
59 x 78 in
9 Transfigured by Land, 2024
Flashe on raw canvas
66 x 54 in
Worlds Within Worlds, BCA Center installation view, 2025
10 Urban Orchestration, 2018 oil on canvas
48 x 60 in
11 Walking in Reflections, 2024 oil on canvas
12 x 80 in
12 Walking with Water, 2020-2025 video (16:56)
Music by Richard Reed Parry
Performed by Nico Muhly & YMusic
13 Windborne Songs, 2022 oil on canvas
66 x 54 in
14 Winter Cries and Utterances, 2018 oil on canvas
66 x 54 in
15-22 Bobolink Frenzy, 2012
A Buzzing in the Pasture, 2016
Lighthouse?, 2009
Luminous Darkness, 2011
Providence Water, 2018
Small Roman Memory, 2020
Spontaneous Spouting, 2012
Zephyrs, 2014 oil on panel
12 x 12 x 2 in
All works Courtesy of the Artist Price upon Request
WALKING WITH WATER
I like to walk. Especially during COVID, it became a way to think on my feet while being outdoors, isolated, in motion, and visually focused on my immediate environment. Then it was my hillside in Vermont and near my studio in Providence, RI. More recently I’ve expanded my walks in other places where I paint, especially in Rome and New York City. Alone, with phone in hand, I find myself stopping often to photograph the moods of and startling images in the water on my walks.
These photos taken between 2020 and 2025 are a distillation of thousands of photographs I made with different amounts of intention, luck, determination, serendipity, discipline and a small amount of on-site editing. Water is always different. It teaches me to see and seek new things, and with new questions, I look for new responses. As a painter, I see my phone photos as “found paintings”. I would never paint from these photographs as they are complete as is.
These images, stitched together to simulate a kind of mental walking pace around watery places I know well, form a wordless portrait of how my mind takes in fragments of the everyday and immediate to contemplate universal connections. This video is meant to be a relaxed appreciation of our most precious, exciting, mysterious and constantly recycling resource: WATER.
— Bunny Harvey
Walking with Water, 2020-2025, video stills
BIOGRAPHY
Bunny Harvey (b. 1946, New York City, NY) received her BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Harvey was exclusively represented in New York City for more than 30 years at Terry Dintenfass and Berry-Hill galleries. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions including Davis Museum, Wellesley College, MA; American University of Paris, France; Newport Art Museum, RI; Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, and the American Academy in Rome, Italy.
Harvey’s paintings have been featured in numerous national group exhibitions including Boston Museum of Fine Art, MA; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Denver Art Museum, CO; Neuberger Museum, SUNY Purchase, NY; and the Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY, with international exhibitions at Shanghai University College of Fine Arts Gallery, China; Atelier Spreng, Bern, Switzerland; and Soviet Artists’ Union Gallery, Moscow, (former USSR). Her work is found in numerous public and private collections.
Select awards for the artist include the prestigious Two-Year Rome Prize in Painting, American Academy in Rome, Italy; the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, Providence, RI; the Rhode Island School of Design Alumna of the Year Award for Professional Achievement, and numerous faculty awards from Wellesley College, MA. Bunny Harvey was Professor of Art at Wellesley College, Massachusetts for 39 years. The artist now lives and works between her studios in Tunbridge, VT, Providence, RI, and New York City, NY.
A Solid Buzzing, 2024, oil on canvas, 36 x 72 in
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
FAMILY ART SATURDAY
Saturday, February 22, 2025, 11am – 1pm
Fourth Floor, BCA Studio, BCA Center
Join BCA for a drop-in artmaking activity in conjunction with Bunny Harvey’s exhibit Worlds within Worlds.
Saturday, April 26, 2025 11am – 2pm
BCA Center, Outside on Church Street
Celebrate Earth Day! Explore themes of nature with different processes and materials with activities inspired by the landscape paintings of Bunny Harvey.
ARTIST TALK WITH BUNNY HARVEY
Thursday, May 8, 2025, 6 – 7:30 pm
BCA Center, 135 Church Street
Zoom option (burlingtoncityarts.org/event to register)
Bunny Harvey discusses her exhibition, Worlds Within Worlds, shares more about her creative process and how memory and sensory observations inform her paintings.
ALL PUBLIC PROGRAMS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
SPRING GROUP AND SCHOOL VISITS
BCA gallery educators lead inquiry-driven group tours that encourage close looking, critical thinking, and thought-provoking conversation. We connect these conversations with hands-on art activities that explore exhibition themes, materials, and artistic processes. We welcome public, private, and homeschool students in grades pre-K to 12 and beyond.
Program fee: $15 per student ($10 tour only)
Groups are invited to apply for a partial or full scholarship
Contact Heather Ferrell, Curator/Director of Exhibitions, at hferrell@burlingtoncityarts.org for more information or to reserve a visit.
Bunny Harvey: Worlds Within Worlds is supported in part by the Maslow Family Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts.
