Harvey is known for works that seek out the ‘mystical in the mundane’, soft, tender and surreal works of nature, plants, flowers and Harvey’s family. Born in Devon, Harvey began working in a darkroom as young as thirteen, the beginning of a lifelong passion for photography. She later worked for more than a decade as an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. Her award-winning work has featured in the New York Times and has been exhibited internationally, and is held in institutional collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has published four books of her work to date, and her photographs have been likened to that of Surrealist masters such as Magritte and magical realists for her compelling, captivating way of finding magic moments where we least expect them.

The photographs presented in I Want You To Remember This Forever showcase Harvey’s ongoing fascination with luminosity, touching on this timeless theme with her photographic practice and the ways in which it connects through centuries of art in other mediums, and is an intimate enquiry into the way memory and meaning intersect in image-making. “The everyday inspires me” Harvey, who is now based in Maine, explains. “The light on a tree, a half-heard conversation at the coffee shop, my kid when she smiles at me. I actively seek out beauty every day, even when I don’t feel like it, and use the camera as a way of noticing and recording.”

Curator, advisor and photography specialist Brandei Estes, who worked closely with the artist on the exhibition, is Harvey’s champion for The Wick. She said: “I champion Cig Harvey because her work reminds me what it means to truly look. Her photographs slow time; they make the familiar feel sacred. She builds a world that is both intimate and expansive—rooted in domestic life yet charged with mystery and emotion. I’m drawn to the way she uses color and light not just as aesthetic choices, but as expressions of feeling and care. There’s a tenderness in her images that resists irony; they insist that beauty still matters. Within contemporary photography—so often driven by concept or critique—Harvey’s work offers a radical act of sincerity. She invites us to value emotion and attention as critical forms of seeing. Her photographs don’t shout—they whisper, and in that quietness they become unforgettable.”

Asked what her biggest achievement is to date, Harvey replies humbly: “To live as an artist. I didn’t think that was possible when I was younger.”