WORK IN PROGRESS
Un/Natural
works by Liz Harvey
June 05 - June 28, 2026
Un/Natural is an exhibition of sculptures, textile works, and works on paper that utilize layered color and jostling patterns to challenge our perceptions of what is "natural."
Harvey’s "plant hybrids from the future" combine diverse materials like fabric, wire, and plaster to disrupt notions of purity, while her textiles and prints highlight historical lesbian love as both poetry and protest. Her work harnesses maximalist color and form to point toward queer and environmental liberatory futures, exploring an unfixed, "both/and" state of being.
Key highlights of the exhibition include:
- Strange Plants Series: Sculptures that envision sustainable future worlds where humans and plants coexist. These sculpture and textile works are envisioned as hybrids from a future world, acting as agents of change that foreground both the natural and the artificial, adaptation and bioengineering.
- Lavender Menace Series: Monoprints focusing on negative space and indeterminacy, inspired by the 1970 "Lavender Menace" queer feminist action. “Lavender Menace” was a queer action from 1970 in which lesbians from Radicalesbians and other feminist groups staged an action - “an organized hijacking” – of the Second Congress to Unite Women in NYC. They successfully demanded that the National Organization of Women (NOW) accept lesbians and their demands as an integral part of the women’s liberation movement.
- Textile Banners: Works such as Yellow Shift, Red Shift, and Blue Shift incorporate text from Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Gilbert, functioning as both maps and illegible letters. These banners feature text excerpts of queer historical letters and letter-poems from poet Emily Dickinson to her beloved - and next-door neighbor, Susan Gilbert.
- Political Works: Chain of Lies, a 300-foot paper chain documenting 365 lies from the first year of the current federal administration, and the companion zine, lies, lies, liar, which links contemporary lies about the queer community to historical precedents.
Chain of Lies, 2025-6, Watercolor paper, ink, glue, watercolor, vintage wall sconces, Dimensions variable when installed Length: 350 feet T his piece is composed from Harvey’s process of writing down one lie a day during the first year of the second Trump administration, found in the press. The resulting 365 lies, from January 20, 2025 - January 19, 2026, were touted primarily by the U.S. federal government. Lies about immigrants are on chain links painted red. Trump himself told more than 30,000 lies in his first term, as reported by the Washington Post. As Timothy Snyder wrote, “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. ” From On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, 2017 Queer Lie/Queer Win: Alex Valdez, 2026
Red Shift, 2021, Digital print on fabric, zippers, thread, 48 x 48 x 4 inches
Yellow Shift, 2021, Digital print on fabric, zippers, thread, 48 x 48 x 3-½ inches. “Yellow Shift” features text from little-known letters from Emily Dickinson to her beloved, Susan Gilbert that spell out her passionate yearning for time together across time and space. A youthful and intimate letter is excerpted here: writ large, but barely-legible, reflecting the hiding-in-plain-sight nature of their romantic relationship.
Fixer, 2024, Celluclay, Sculptamold, wire, wire mesh, fabric, acrylic paint, 32 x 19 x 13-½ in.
Pollenhead, 2024, Celluclay, Sculptamold, wire, wire mesh, fabric, acrylic paint, 33-½ x 17 x 11-½ in.
Bimbo, 2024, Celluclay, Sculptamold, wire, wire, mesh, fabric, acrylic medium, 24 x 25 x 35 in.
Knee Deep in Your Dreams, 2025, Repurposed fabric fragments, thread, bracket, notions, 91 x 90 x 16 in.
Lavender Flood, 2023, 14-¾ in. x 18-⅛ in. Monoprint
Yes, yes, sisters! I’m tired of being in the closet because of the women’s movement! Karla Jay, 1970, 2023, 14-¾ x 18-⅛ in., Monoprint
Extra Lavender, 2023, 15 x 18 in., Monoprint and collage
Bleed with Tulle, 2023, 14-⅞ x 18 in., Monoprint with collage
Lavender Menace, 2023, 14-¾ x 18-⅛ in., Monoprint and collage
Crowded Meander, 2023, 14-⅚ x 18-⅛ in., Monoprint