This month at ROY G BIV three artists displayed a plethora of exceptional and distinctive works. At a
first glance, each artists’ work appears separate and isolated, as each uses a different media: Michael
Arrigo produced digital images as well as installation pieces, Colin McDonald utilized a performance
piece and ink drawings, and Ashley Moore displayed lenticular printing and digital images. However
physically diverse each piece is, there appearsto be a single, unified theme; whether they draw on their
family history or on their personal experiences. Each artist discusses the passage of time and how it
affects man.

Colin McDonald’s 32 Hour Dedication consists of 32 ink drawings of the rings of a tree stump on rice
paper. In his time in Tanzania, he discovered an entire forest that was illegally bulldozed. These

drawings attempt to maintain the trees’ integrity, and it is clear in each individual ring how affected

McDonald was by this selfish destruction of nature. In addition to these drawings, McDonald also

performed a five-minute piece entitled Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips. The performance consisted

of McDonald wiping round, seemingly perfect, chopped tree stumps with water, and one by one moving

the five stumps from a piece of leather on the ground to a neighboring square of carpet. After moving the

stumps back to the leather, McDonald stood on top of a much larger tree stump and balanced atop the

stump for several seconds. The meaning of the performance is ambiguous and leaves interpretation to the

viewer, yet, upon reading his artist’s statement, the meaning becomes more clear. “The sidewalk outside of

my childhood home began to lift and divide over time….Soon enough, the concrete slabs were spread far

across the surface of the earth and the existence of my original sidewalk became indiscernible.” McDonald,

through his use of ink drawings and his performance, is commenting on how man tries to manipulate nature

into something useful for himself, something permanent; however, nature is in a constant state of flux and

not necessarily at man’s disposal. He makes the point that man cannot control time and nature, it is a force

much greater than himself. McDonald’s ink drawings of the Tanzanian tree stumps, more specifically,

discuss how man’s greed and insensitivity allows him to destroy nature and history.
 

Michael Arrigo’s three works are greatly influenced by his family. The six digital prints from the

Boggle Project are all children that are his own or that affect his life in some way. He has each child shake

a boggle game and scramble the letters, then Arrigo himself creates words amongst the scrambled letters.

Arrigo considers this “postdicting” the past, which allows one to forecast and understand the present. These

images clearly deal with time and how man is able to manipulate and analyze the past to better appreciate

the current time. In addition to the Boggle Project, Arrigo exhibited two installation pieces, Lay Bare and

Sub Imago. Lay Bare directly addresses man’s perception of time; a video of Arrigo sanding paint off of a

croquet ball is in constant loop, but the video is playing in reverse. If the viewer were to closely observe,

one could see that the paint is actually being sanded onto the ball. Similar to McDonald, Arrigo wants to

show that man cannot control or fully comprehend the concept of time, as hard as he may try.

 

Ashley Moore’s exhibit, Parallel Moments, displays eighteen digital and lenticular prints,

juxtaposing images from her life on top of parallel moments from her mother’s life. For example, New

Kitten is a childhood image of Moore’s mother holding a kitten, with a similar image of Moore herself at

around the same age holding a different kitten. The similarities of their lives emphasize Moore’s point: that

humans are not as unique as we like to think. Photographs are used to capture a single moment in time, and

as a collective whole document an individual’s entire life; Moore’s documentation of her and her mother’s

childhood shows her attempt to pinpoint almost exact moments from two separate lives and, unbeknownst

to them at the time, how eerily similar and alike these specific moments are.

McDonald, Arrigo, and Moore’s works, although extremely different in content and nature,

all attempt to display man’s relationship with time. Whether influenced by a Tanzanian forest, by their

children, or by their family history, all three artists are able to convey their ideas through their beautifully

constructed art.
 
By Alex Newman