Artists Catherine Murphy and Harry Roseman are featured in Marta Renzi and Daniel Wolff's insightful documentary Cathy & Harry in the midst of exhibitions, producing new work, and living together. They complement each other in their styles and concepts—Cathy in her representational painting and realism and Harry in his shapeshifting material pieces. Both are known for a meticulous, drawn-out work ethic and their love of each other. Shown in their home studios, galleries, public works and daily lives, we are given a glimpse of the process behind the product. The couple each tote prolific careers.
Catherine Murphy shares her thinking in academic language, challenging the meaning of realism in art and comparing her style to that of other artists. Describing “Canopy”, a painting of rows of water buckets reflecting the tree branches above, she says “That doesn’t go back like a Piero della Francesca”. Murphy often creates a sloping effect towards the top of the canvas, as with Polka Dotted Dress, which is of a dress hanging off a bed. Creating this lens-like perspective requires hours of craning over the canvas with “sweater in paint”. Murphy makes the most out of each piece, saying her “job is to muscle out this rectangle.”
Cathy notes self-knowledge as key to producing meaningful work. Reality is in the eyes of the beholder, and Cathy often takes scenes and objects from everyday life—as with Under the Table, of skirts and napkins under a table (‘this is the most ordinary and most extraordinary thing I’ve ever painted’); Double Bed (of two sides of a slept-in bed); Bathroom Sink (of cut hair in a water-full sink), moments that are somehow magnetizing when magnified and framed with Cathy’s paint.
Harry has described her pieces as “A strange mix of fact and fiction”, something to do with her use of color, and this rings true in their relatable yet eerie atmosphere, normality suspended, dramatized—almost like a movie frame, it reverberates in a context we don’t yet know about, but could.
Harry says the last time Catherine worried he was having a breakdown instead of a creative burst of production was his period of collage-making. Harry insists, “No one should say they’re bored. They could just cut things out. It’s totally satisfying.”
While Murphy works on the canvas, her husband plays with volume and texture, making ‘the rigid fluid and the fluid rigid’, as with his draped and folded plywood series. He tends to do things the hard way, using a zero-point paintbrush to painstakingly achieve the miniature detailing of wood grain on these physics-defying pieces.
Harry Roseman’s murals decorate Vassar University, where he teaches art (“Hole in the Wall”), the Wall Street subway station (“Subway Wall”), and JFK International Airport (“Curtain Wall”). But he’s given up this larger-than-life aspect of his work, identifying the efforts as at times “debilitating” and a “discontinuum” to the rest of his portfolio.
A multimedia artist, Harry has created multiple web projects involving animation and photography, their unconventional structures in parallel to his physical works.
Cathy and Harry have shaped their lives around artmaking, choosing not to have children to dedicate time for reproduction of the soul.
On a walk in the woods, arm in arm, Cathy says to Harry, “Art is really a good thing to do, but I also think that art is mankind’s excuse for being the worst species in the entire world.”
Harry says, “Excuse? Justification, you mean.”
“I just hope the computers like my paintings.
“When there’s only robots left?”
“When there’s only robots left.”
Cathy and Harry will be screening at the Fall 2025 New Jersey Film Festival on Sunday, September 28. The film will be Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5 PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ. Cathy and Harry Directors Marta Renzi and Daniel Wolff will be at the in-person screening to do a Q+A with the audience. Tickets are available for purchase here.
The 44th Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place between September 5-October 10, 2025. The Festival will be a hybrid as we will be presenting it online as well as doing select in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VoD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings. Plus, we are very proud to announce that acclaimed band Cold Weather Company will be doing an audio-visual concert on Friday, October 10 at 7PM. Lastly, we will be offering three FREE Filmmaking Workshops! The in-person screenings and the Cold Weather Company concert will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 1PM, 5PM or 7PM on their show date. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$120; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program. The Filmmaking Workshops are FREE and open to the public but have limited seating and require advance registration. To register email us at [email protected]
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