Witness Tree: Installation Project at Intersect Palm Springs Design and Art Fair 2026

Yiwei Gallery presents Catherine Ruane’s Witness Tree on the entrance wall of Intersect Palm Springs 2026. This large-scale, site-specific installation features charcoal and graphite drawings on archival paper. Ruane spent a full year drawing every single leaf, creating a work that has traveled to several institutions, galleries, and museums.

Alone, each sheet will read almost abstract. Together, they will form a tree in perpetual grief—a silent witness to human history, bearing the weight of events too vast for words. Ruane draws inspiration from real trees: Sycamores in Texas hill country, the Antietam Battleground in Maryland, and the abandoned pear tree that survived the World Trade Center bombing. She seeks them out, knowing they will find her.

They will be there. Watching. Knowing.