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biography |
Gregor Harvie is a London-based artist whose work explores elemental questions about perception, consciousness and the nature of human identity. |
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Gregor was born in 1969 and brought up in rural Devon surrounded by rolling hills and wooded valleys. His early promise at painting and drawing led to him being given-one-to one tutoring by a well-known local artist. This began an artistic relationship between Gregor and the artist Dudley Weatherley that continued for more than 20 years until Dudley's death in 2004. Dudley painted traditional oils and watercolours, and as a result he gave Gregor a thorough understanding of classical painting techniques, most importantly instilling in him the significance of tone and composition.
Gregor's first interests were in the derelict and run-down agricultural buildings that littered the landscape around his home, full of decay and signs of the past. Dudley joked that he would rather paint a heap of junk than a beautiful landscape.
Gregor left Devon to go to University in Cardiff, where he pursued his interest in buildings by studying to become an architect. He painted throughout his studies and returned to the Devon landscape whenever he could. On completing his architectural training, he studied for a PhD in environmental design, developing techniques to make buildings more efficient.
Between 1996 and 2000, Gregor worked on the creation of the Millennium Dome, managing the design of the Dome’s Gardens, an interactive exhibit called Watercycle and 3Dome, an animated 3D film. He also worked on the design of the Rest Zone, a collaboration with Richard Rogers, Artangel and lighting designer Tanya Burns. The Rest Zone was an immersive artistic experience within which a slowly-changing story of light and sound played out across an entirely featureless, white chill-out zone.
Gregor was responsible for environmental policy at the Dome, and in April 2000 he directed Earth Day at the Dome, part of the world’s biggest ever environmental event. Bands, street performers and special interactive exhibits were brought together for a spectacular one-off environmental celebration.
It was working with organisations such as Richard Rogers and Artangel, as well as a number of well-known artists such Anish Kapoor and Bill Culbert, that encouraged Gregor to start painting full time. He enrolled for a post-graduate diploma at the City and Guilds of London Art College and spent a year of intensive study developing his painting skills and extending his knowledge of contemporary art.
When he left art college he decided to completely break free from his background of landscape painting and began to paint abstract portraits. In 2001, he had his first solo show, suspending fifty experimental portraits from the cavernous roof of a renovated power station behind Hoxton Square in London. Attached to trapeze wires, paintings were hung in sequences, each group tackling the same subject in an increasingly abstract way. The resulting progressions charted the transition from real-world representation to the abstract depths of the subconscious.
Gregor won the de Laszlo Foundation Prize for Portraiture in 2001.
He then went back to landscape painting, taking the abstract techniques he had learned through his portraiture and applying them to a subject he already knew well. His first solo show of semi-abstract landscape paintings was staged at the elegant Flying Colours Gallery in Chelsea in 2004. The show was the culmination of twelve months’ work and presented a thought-provoking interpretation of the contemporary British landscape, focussing on our conscious and subconscious perceptions of the environment.
Between 2006 and 2008 Gregor virtually stopped exhibiting, embarking on an intense period of experimentation, free from the demands of the art market and unconstrained by the expectations of collectors. During this time his work leapt forward, gaining both maturity and a hard, uncompromising edge. His current work is demanding and challenging. It tackles complex subjects relating our sense of ourselves and explores these subjects through sophisticated abstract techniques.
Gregor continues to develop his understanding of environmental design and of architecture while also reading widely on the history and philosophy of art.
He writes and gives talks on art and environmental design, he has tutored architectural students on environmental design and has acted as external examiner for BSc students at the Welsh School of Architecture.
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