By Wafir Salih | wsalih@alextimes.com

“Cathy and Harry” captures the artistic and personal bond between Catherine Murphy and Harry Roseman, an artist couple whose work and lives have been intertwined since they first met in art school. The couple’s daily routines, creative processes and the philosophies that shape their art and relationship are on full display in this documentary.

Murphy is a realist painter. Her art is featured throughout the film and is highly detailed and photo-realistic, which she credits to her observational approach. One painting shows an array of colorful water-filled buckets, with the water in them reflecting the trees and the sky. The piece is so realistic it could easily be mistaken for a photograph.

Roseman’s art offers a more surreal and abstract flair. One piece of his shown in the film features large, hypnotic swirling circles. Roseman is also a photographer and sculptor.

The documentary was directed by Marta Renzi and Daniel Wolff, who are themselves a couple and longtime friends of 40 years with the two artists. During a question-and-answer session following the showing, the directors explained why the film felt so intimate: Renzi shot the whole thing on her cellphone.

Though they don’t usually recommend shooting an entire movie on a cellphone, the directors said this approach created a more comfortable atmosphere for Murphy and Roseman.

“One of the advantages … is that you’re not obtrusive at all. You know, they can talk to you,” Wolff said.

“They, of course, knew I was [filming], but it wasn’t like: ‘Oh, put the boom over here,’” Renzi said. “There was no separation between us and them.”

In one scene with the couple at breakfast, Roseman speaks candidly with Murphy about the thoughts of not being “successful enough” cropping up in his mind from time to time. Yet, when he’s working on a new piece, those thoughts instantly disappear – a sentiment artists across all fields can relate to. Conversations like this are woven throughout the film.

In another scene, Murphy described debates among artists in the 1970s about narrative painting and how the iconography during the renaissance created a shared visual language everyone understood and related to. She explained that the sentiment during the 1970s was that people are more divided and in their own bubbles, which means that narratives in art are not as universally shared or understood.

Murphy pushed back against the idea that people’s experiences were too separate to be relatable and emphasized that “we all sit in chairs” and do ordinary things. The scene then cuts to her painting, “Oven Lights,” showing an oven with a pie inside, an example of a familiar and mundane moment people can relate to.

“Cathy and Harry” offers a look into the cozy and creative world of two artists who have been together for 50 years, revealing a down-to-earth, funny and relatable couple who are each masters of their own craft.