Tim Roby's Exhibition
When going through the “Scapes” exhibition at the Nash, Tim Roby’s artwork caught my eye because of its quirky quality. My first encounter with the unusual shapes and distinct color scheme presented as paintings, drawings, and three-dimensional structures made me curious to find a deeper meaning. Initially I couldn’t come up with an underlying theme and felt that maybe these were all new objects to me, however, the more I focused on individual pieces I got the odd sensation of being surrounded by objects not quite familiar – yet not completely alien either. All of a sudden the long 3-D tube (colored nude on the outside and red inside) reminded me of a capillary blood vessel. The thing it was lying on (colored gray) looked like a storage cart. The standing pink object seemed similar to a portable AC/heating unit. The black object creeping over the gallery wall - barely kept from falling seemed to be a bird-cage come to life, and the painting of what appeared upside down on its legs suddenly became an overturned sofa-chair.
The color scheme of pastel blues, pinks, and nude colors as well as a few kicks of yellow, black, red, green, and a lot of white had an interesting effect on me as a viewer. I initially think of the use of pastels as having a submissive effect on the environment and making objects pale in comparison to other things, but that is not how I felt with Roby’s work. It definitely added to the whimsical element of the 3-D objects and made me feel like a child in a candy shop surrounded by a lot of sweets. It seemed to have an air of playfulness about it – like it was daring to be touched but that it also might spring into action and surprise you if you did. One such object that looked enticing was a yellow wedge (looked like cheese) mounted at the tip of a longer, thinner blue post. As a viewer you almost wanted to pick it up or touch it because it looked like it might fall over yet it stood very solid on the ground. I also feel the colors had an effect on how I interpreted the shapes, because the same tube I described as a capillary could have been a pipe if colored silver, or a hose if colored green. It was this peculiar color – shape combination that required my innovative side to come out and I would recommend any new viewers to put on their best thinking caps.
The paintings and drawings had a little bit of a different vibe. They were more structured and most reminded me of manufactured materials like parts of buildings, doorways, and furniture. One specific painting done on a wood background with black blades and bumpy pink surfaces on the bottom made me think of parting a dog’s fur and getting out a microscope to zoom in as if looking for fleas between rows of individual hairs. After taking a look at everything, what I felt everything had in common was the sense that these were small pieces of larger units severed from the whole and made to stand independently. Perhaps not all physically separated, but sometimes zoomed in, zoomed out, or focusing in on a perspective of an object that a person would not normally take into account. None of the objects were very complicated or intricate – they all seemed rather simple and basic which is probably why they felt like such familiar bits and pieces.
After taking all of this in without any prior knowledge about Roby’s artwork, it was very interesting to go back and look at the titles that he provided for each piece. It was at this point that I discovered that there seemed to be a political theme going on which really made me change my mind about how to view the objects. With titles like “The Fragility of Democracy”, “Negotiating with Terrorists”, “The Power and the Glory”, “Rise Above”, and “America the Beautiful,” I found a new interpretation for what I saw. All of a sudden the cage became a symbol of imprisonment, a lump on the floor became a symbol of our country’s failures, and the cheese wedge became more of an Olympic torch. I could definitely see two distinct mountainous structures in a drawing after I read the title “Beyond the Mountain is a Mountain”. I’m not sure if political commentary is what Roby intended or if he wanted the viewer to make up new meanings for what he portrayed, but I was glad to have my initial experience and then to see everything in a different light the second around. I still don’t have any answers about this exhibit, but I think that’s the best way to see it. I think it’s meant to engage your creative side and it definitely got me to think twice about everyday objects. I would best relate this experience to comedy skits where a group is presented with a seemingly everyday item like a pool noodle and asked to come up with as many different uses for it as possible.