About the Artist
Ivy Bigbee
is a Washington, D.C.-based photographer-writer-poet. Bigbee’s work
includes a U.S. commemorative stamp, book jackets, commercial packaging
and appears in a wide variety of stock photography.* In 1999 and 2000,
she was granted rare access to photograph Cirque du Soleil. She has curatorial,
adjuncting and solo museum exhibiting experience, and was profiled in
People and Newsweek. Her round still life photographs (tondi) have been
scholarly reviewed and critically acclaimed. Bigbee may be the only photographer
whose religious architectural images are permanently installed in a U.S.
city hall. Bigbee authored Optical Allusions: An Art Photographer’s
Poems. Her celebrity photos include David Bowie, Robert Bly, John Updike,
and Nancy Grace. Her stock photography is held by SuperStock, Inc. The
Miami, Florida native is a 1994 Summa cum laude graduate, University of
North Florida. She is currently writing a novel adapted from her prize-winning
novella, "Aunt Chattie's Beads."
*Curriculum vitae available on request.
Ivy Bigbee
Artist Statement
Ivy Bigbee would not say she walks on water, but through it, observing that often the most noteworthy images are defined by light, then undergo seemingly alchemic transformations in manipulated liquids. To behold beauty, to perceive structure, a camera lens, the eyes and still point configure her personal aesthetics as an image “event horizon.”
When discussing her work, Ivy notes that to look through the viewfinder is to inhabit at will a dream. She believes that in images and image-making, understanding and permanence exist in the swirling currents of time. Photography allows these concepts to be captured on the film plane, to be translated creatively into an infinite number of visual languages.
Ivy's stories and poems identify and echo feeling and perception. The mute swan’s voice is beauty; through language, Ivy Bigbee records the call.
