van gogh’s bed

A book in six parts
with a poem by Anne Michaels.
A meditation on time and remembrance.
And isolation.

I first saw Van Gogh's room at the asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence in 2010.
A room small enough to contain a restless spirit.
A bed, a window, a mirror.

I photographed the bed.
A small iron bed in a corner.

The memory lived within me.

In May 2018, 8 years later, I had the chance
to revisit this refuge in Provence with my husband and youngest son.
The experience took my breath away.  Again.

I was struck by the scale of the room.
A tiny room.
And the view from the window.
The garden, the blue irises, the gnarled apple trees bent by the wind.
The world outside, the world inside.
Emotion contained.

*Van Gogh's year at the asylum,  Saint-Paul-Mausole, in Saint-Remy-de-Provence was his most prolific.
He produced 142 paintings.

2020, edition of 20
4.6 x 6.2 inches, six accordion sections presented in a yellow box (the colour of sunflowers)
Poem by Anne Michaels
Prints available upon request

Collections
Columbia University; Library of Congress; McGill University; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; National Poetry Library, London; University of Arizona; University of Toronto; University of Utah

Exhibitions
BED TWO, Umbrella Arts, New York, New York, 2010 [single photograph from project]

Press
Review by Douglas Stockdale, PhotoBook Journal: The Contemporary Photobook Magazine, March 2022
The most famous bedroom in art history: secrets of Van Gogh’s nocturnal life by Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper, 9 October 2020
Van Gogh’s Bed: Ewa Monika Zebrowski and the Art of the Book by James D. Campbell, White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art, April 2020