New Trailer for SO IT WAS WITH US
16th December | 2011Here is the new trailer I just finished for the film I wrote and directed, SO IT WAS WITH US. See more: www.SOITWASWITHUS.com
Media Arts Fellowship Award
23rd November | 2011I just got news that I was selected as a finalist for the Media Arts Fellowship Award from Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Columbus Film Council. Read more about it here: Media Arts Fellowship Award
stump
3rd November | 2011
This is a photo from a series of tests I made a while back – it seems to relate quite well to the post below…
2 by 4
29th October | 2011This is an old print I made that I recently came across… Basically what I did was use an 8 foot long 2×4, inked it up, and printed it out again and again until it disappeared.
An old elementary school teacher once told me that just a few hundred years ago a squirrel could cross the entire state of Ohio without touching the ground due to the forest that once inhabited the state.
SO IT WAS WITH US
4th October | 2011Visit the official website for the feature film I wrote and directed: SO IT WAS WITH US
SO IT WAS WITH US // official poster
I’m currently in the process of submitting it to festivals across the US and internationally.
catch-up
4th October | 2011I have now completely re-designed the site – Here are the last entries for the last year or so…
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AUGUST 2011 – I started production on So It Was With Us, A feature length film that I wrote and am directing.
www.SoItWasWithUs.com
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Alex Newman had a great review of the exhibition I had back at Roy G Biv gallery:
read it here:
July Exhibition Review
In Blog By by Emily Moorhead On July 27, 2011
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 Tazmanian 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 Tasmanian 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
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July 2nd 2011 – ROY G BIV GALLERY – Short North, Columbus, OH – I will be doing a performance piece, which will be “left over” for the rest of the month.
http://roygbivgallery.org/exhibitions/july-2011/
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Here is a link to a wonderful new publication created and produced by a wonderful Jeff Bowers. He approached me about including some of my work in the compliaiton so I gave him a few photographs I had been looking for an outlet for and that had not previously been seen – -
PRISM index is a limited edition, handmade, silk-screened, mixed-media compilation that compiles the various work of a wide spectrum of artists into one place. The goal of this publication is to create a collage of current art/culture scenes from throughout the US and the world. By sustaining an outlet for artistic expression, PRISM index offers its audience an off-kilter style, while expanding the aesthetic horizons of all parties involved. As a network for artists, this project seeks to establish a platform for multi-media sharing through the tactile, aural, and visual experience of print, images, sounds (CD), and movies (DVD) and to extend and elaborate those expressions through its online presence. PRISM index intended to create something that could not be thrown away, skimmed through, replicated, or forgotten.
http://prismindex.com/colinmcdonald.html
www.prismindex.com
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April 2010 had a ton of things going on. I did a couple artist talks, had a big show (see below),
did my first solo performace piece, taught my first class…
Shows promo poster…
Images from the opening of Open House…
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Images from Modern Times performance
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Article in the Columbus Dispatch Newspaper about the Spring Juried show I was in at
Fort Hayes Shot Tower Gallery:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/arts/stories/2010/03/21/strong-showing.html?sid=101
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Article about the Open House show on ColumbusArts.com!
http://www.columbusarts.com/details.php?id=69019&type=e
Event
“Open House” by Allison Buenger and Colin McDonald, curated by Amy Koenig
Presented by Ohio Art League
4/1/2010 – 4/21/2010
The exhibition Open House, on view April 1 – 21 at the Ohio Art League Gallery, welcomes visitors to a setting that is seemingly familiar, yet infinitely strange. The show presents new work from artists Allison Buenger and Colin McDonald. These friends and graduates from the Ohio State University were brought together by curator Amy Koenig because of aesthetic and conceptual parallels in their work. In sculptural and video installations both artists utilize household objects – constructed and re-purposed – as entry points into a larger dialogue about the implications of domestic life. A mutual interest in the mundane binds the artists’ work as a joint examination of habit, habitat, and habitant. Common objects appear throughout the gallery. From a wall of hand-rolled toilet paper to columns of lamps balancing from floor to ceiling – the unseen becomes apparent and purpose disappears. “I’m really asking a question” states McDonald. “How can the objects and materials of modern society be presented in a way that calls for a renewed sense of discovery and exploration?” Buenger sees household objects “as an interface between people and where they live.” She believes “drawing attention to objects by changing the material composition and drastically eliminating or altering an object’s function can illuminate the symbiotic relationship between occupier and space.”
Price
$FREE
Order & Box Office Information
Venue
: Ohio Art League
1552 North High Street
Columbus, OH 43201
http://www.oal.org
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Month of April 2010 – Ohio Art League Galley, Columbus,OH
Allison Beugner and myself will be showing new work at the Ohio Art League Gallery in the South Campus Gateway of Columbus, Ohio.
The show is titled Open House and will deal with the ideas of domestic life:
“Open House will welcome viewers to a setting that is seemingly familiar, yet infinitely strange.”
