Cameron Harvey: Family of Things was commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and the Anchorage Museum as part of a new partnership model for the 2026 Biennial. For the first time, the Toronto Biennial is extending beyond Toronto through artist-driven projects developed with institutions in other cities. The Anchorage Museum is one of the institutions participating in this expanded model, connecting Alaska audiences with a multi-sited international exchange of artists and ideas.

Created in response to the 2024-25 wildfires in the Los Angeles area where the artist lives, Cameron Harvey’s series of large-scale paintings evokes chaparral leaves transformed by fire. Chaparral is California’s largest native plant community, and plays an important role in watershed protection, erosion control, and ecosystem abundance. Harvey is drawn to the idea that plants, as ancient ancestors of humans, “can teach us how to adapt, change, protect ourselves, and look to our communities for support.” 

Organized around a central midline, each painting incorporates gentle drapery and subtle shifts in color inspired by leaves the artist collected as specimens. Executed at a scale that transforms close observation into an embracing, meditative experience, the works explore ideas of impermanence, interconnectedness, and transcendence.

Harvey reflects that her paintings, like all living things, “are always in a state of becoming and undoing at the same time.”