Victoria Harvey is an artist whose passion for the natural world is vividly seen in her paintings. She works in oil on canvas, painting en pleine aire (in the landscape) and in the studio with a traditional and painterly technique and a strong sensitivity to color and light.
Childhood travels in Europe with her family gave Victoria a deep appreciation of the arts and a desire to pursue painting as a means of expressing her own innate gift and her love of the natural world. She received her formal education in painting at The Arkansas Arts Center, a small fine-arts conservatory founded by then Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and his wife, Jeannette, who became major patrons of her early career. Important influences in her work were the French and American impressionists, particularly Childe Hassam: the perception of color and light and the ability to capture in paint the fleeting moment.
“For me, as an artist, the landscape has always spoken of the renewing experience of closeness to nature and reflective solitude. My main work has been to interpret on the canvas the color and light of those fleeting hours spent in the natural world.” – Victoria Harvey
During her career, she has received numerous honors, and her work is represented in many notable collections around the country. For many years, she has lived and worked on Nantucket, a small island off the coast of New England.
“To paint on Nantucket is to be surrounded by the beauty of nature infused with the intensity of sunlight that one finds only on islands. I am captivated by the wild beauty of Nantucket’s rugged, windswept landscape, the largeness of the skies, the tranquility of the peaceful harbors and grazing sheep, the subtle harmony of the gray cottages, the vivid hues of the wildflowers and gardens.” – Victoria Harvey.
