Arnold J. McBay

Common knowledge
Sean O'Sullivan Theatre Gallery

Brock University

Januray 5 > 29

St. Catharines

Common Knowledge is an expanded exploration of ideas initiated during the site-specific project Perdu et trouvé, mounted in the Spring of 2009. Featuring further use of found objects, juxtaposition of found, manipulated and manufactured objects and substances these works continue my exploration of knowledge as a mutable and organic thing. Like Perdu et trouvé it is also a poetic view of the subjectivity of knowledge, and time and how our perception of these things and the objects and materials used to measure them is subjective. This body of work also expands away from my usual methods of working with found objects towards my love of drawing in the use of paper surfaces as the presentation medium for these objects. As in my oilstick drawings, the objects are used in order to form an oblique lexicon of forms in order to create a very personal visual language. Inspired by the literary works of Gaston Bachelard and Jorge Luis Borges this current project will eventually take form in an expanded scale in a future exhibition, involving the creation of a cloudlike book of ideas. These works are a meditation on the act of creativity and creation itself. An erstwhile attempt to measure something not measurable…..

Creating one’s own universe.…is to pierce the veil, the membrane that maps out the spaces between us. These lines that draw out the topographical map of the soul, those surfaces that separate now from our dreams…my dream of the past, our faith in the future. Bits and pieces of a world penetrate the distance between then and now forming a conduit through which we can view ourselves. An erstwhile spyglass that allows us to peer into the silence that teems with reflections flashing here and there like falling stars in the night. These fragments of now, once were then. The act of creation….is an act that creates a small universe. This esoteric and beautifully selfish act is also selfless in its essence. At times deadly serious, yet often pure play? Like an otter, perhaps at times there is no other purpose then the pure joy of sliding down the mud into the waters below. Our furry bellies slick with the soil which will eventually be the bed we will nestle into and dream ourselves into new creatures, substances…another small universe.
Arnold J. McBay January 2010

Installation views