Nightwatch Artist Suite

By day, the suite takes its inspiration from the woods at night. The guest is surrounded by a fantastical forest that is equal parts Renaissance still life and Disney’s Fantasia. When the lights are down, the Nightwatch projection provides the guest with a kind of searchlight that slowly moves across the walls of the room. Wherever the light lands on the wall, it exposes the animated magic of the forest at night, reminding us that while we sleep, the thicket pulses and buzzes, teeming with life. The Nightwatch video is part of a new body of work recently on view at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, You Must Lie Down and Remember the Forest, and relates to the artist’s largest video installation to date, The Coast of Industry, on display at Mass MoCa until September 22, 2024.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

In his animation-based practice, Chris Doyle takes E.M. Forster’s epigraph, “Only Connect” and reconsiders it for a digital age. Often highlighting the precarious moment we face in caring for the natural world, his narratives are constructed on themes of interconnectivity and the tension between the individual and the group in a culture fiercely devoted to progress.