Vessel
McGrath Gallery, Bellarmine University, 2012
Fabricated of frosted acrylic in the same dimensions as a twenty-foot shipping container, the three-dimensional projection screen portrayed four channels of original video footage captured from ships as they travelled on several important maritime shipping routes, including the Yangtze River and Huang Pu Rivers in China, the Chao Praya River in Thailand and the Ohio River (captured in New Albany, Indiana – the home of the artist). The movement of the video and the mapped video projection allowed the video to be displayed only on the acrylic frame, creating a sense of the container moving on water.
This project was supported by a grant The Efroymson Contemporary Art Foundation.
In addition to the video installation, a series of photographs was exhibited that were taken in China and Thailand that portrayed various types of commodity shipping methods, always with the product hidden by tarp. The images below show how they were lit in the gallery, with a sharp focus of light on the tarp in each image.