CATHERINE’S ROOM

Catherine’s Room is a private view into the room of a solitary woman who goes about a series of daily rituals from morning until night. The woman’s actions are simple and purposeful, and appear simultaneously in parallel across five flat panel screens arranged in a horizontal row. Each panel represents a different time of day—morning, afternoon, sunset, evening and night. In the morning she is seen preparing for the new day by doing yoga exercises. In the afternoon she mends clothes as sunlight pours in through the window. At sunset, she struggles to overcome a block with her intellectual work as a writer. In the evening she enters a reflective state by lighting rows of candles to illuminate her darkened room. Finally, at night she prepares for bed: she puts out the lights, removes her clothes, and slowly drifts off to sleep, alone in the still dark room.

A small window in the wall reveals a view of the outside world where the branches of a tree are visible. In each panel the tree is seen in successive stages of its annual cycle, from spring blossoms to bare branches. The world outside the window represents another layer of time, transforming the scene from a record of one day into the larger view of a life bound to the cycles of nature.