Tonee Harbert

About the Exhibition

In the words of the late photographer, curator, writer, and educator Nathan Lyons: “Photography is when used with its regard for inherent directness, a unique and exacting means of isolating inner realities found in correspondence with the physical world.”

Tonee Harbert: Ground Signals featured a body of work concerning humans’ interaction with the landscape and examined visually the way we manipulate it to our own use. Harbert states; “Any purpose we impose on the landscape leaves a mark which can be overt, or faintly shows a past narrative. These signs/signals inhabit our everyday world, where they can take on the surreal quality of a dream world. This work is not an expose on humans’ misuse of the landscape, but more a reflection on our environment and our relationship to it. My intention is to leave space in the photographs.”

About the Artist 

Tonee Harbert is a photographer living in Portland, Maine. His frequent subjects have been people and the landscape of Maine. For his current fine art work he uses a plastic “Diana” camera to capture mysterious and haunting landscapes, and surreal interventions of the human touch on our world.

Harbert has received grants from Nikon, the Maine Arts Commission, and the Maine Community Foundation. He co-authored with Carolyn Chute, a book entitled Elmer Walker: Hermit to Hero. This project was exhibited at the Center or Maine Contemporary Art and also featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Harbert has contributed to other photography books, including Maine: A Peopled Landscape, and Homeless in America.

Harbert's photographs have been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, Danforth Museum of Art, University of Miami, ICA at Maine College of Art, and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. He was granted a one-year artist residency at the Roswell Artist in Residence Project beginning in June 2019. He’s been awarded a New England Emmy award and his work has also been included in two motion pictures: Home Less Home (independent) and Message in a Bottle (Warner Brothers). Harbert received a degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University in 1986.

Harbert’s current work is concerning humans’ interaction with the landscape. Any purpose we impose on the landscape leaves a mark which can be overt, or faintly reveals a past narrative. These signs inhabit our visual world, and when taken together, can transmit the surreal feel of a dream being pieced together.