Domicile Conjugal Yuka Katagiri Published by Nieves (2008) 16 Pages, 11.2 x 17.8 cm, Softcover, Duotone ISBN 978-3-905714-56-2 For Domicile Conjugal - a title borrowed from François Truffaut's movie of 1970 - Katagiri (Sapporo, 1977) selects details from drawings made during the course of 2008. Her first published book focuses on architecture from a richly illustrated world built upon since 2003. Drawn freehand and without drafts, Katagiri's skillful pen drawings give birth to a dimension populated by people and intelligent animals, hanging in the balance of the playful physics unique to her craft. The staple ingredients of traditional Japanese art - mountains, trees, architecture and daily activity - are present but free of the structured compositions and realism. Instead we find a collision between the eccentricity of the west and the precision of the eastern tradition. A Tin-Tinesque sense of adventure led Yuka to spend most of the past decade far away from her homeland, an experience that has no doubt influenced the cross-cultural images marked out by her pen strokes. Katagiri remains a frequent traveler to a world where a moment in time begins with a fresh piece of paper and ends a finished drawing.