The result is like viewing a painting in slow-motion. When he was 23, Bill Viola spent one year in Florence, Italy. Viola's moving tableau is about the expectation of life. Two women are waiting for a third presence. A woman is traveling from nowhere to enter this painting.
Expectation is like a blind act of faith, which can make the invisible visible.
With this slow visual transition from an absence to a presence, Viola aims at connecting Western and Eastern mysticism. I sit in contemplation of the slowly unfolding scene. Inevitably, the scene awakens my Christian memories. The third woman is Mary, who is carrying Jesus in her lap. She moves towards the older friend, Elisabeth, and gives her a gentle hug.