By
Kate VonderPorten
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA student's art exhibit explores themes of forgivenss and identity
UA fine arts senior John Richey just wants to say he's sorry - or rather, wishes he could stop saying it.
His exhibit, "sometimes, sorry isn't enough" now on display at the Rotunda Gallery, explores complex issues involving forgiveness and identity, Richey said.
As the title of his exhibit alludes, Richey explores the limits of the human capability to forgive through his work.
"The title of the show is about me constantly apologizing for things and about being in a situation where 'sorry' won't help because the situation is so bad," Richey said.
He explained that his work is also inspired by "communication as adults in certain situations where there is miscommunication." In his oil painting "the phone is off the hook," Richey said an inability to communicate is expressed by the image of a phone laying off its hook in the lower corner of the painting.
In the same piece, a boy with rabbit ears is pictured surrounded by rabbit masks. "phone" is one of three paintings involving rabbits in the show.
"For me, the bunny figure and mask of bunny is like a self portrait - a representaion," he said. "Situations I am placing the rabbit into relate directly to some of my own experiences."
In the piece "it's not all that bad," Richey said he runs further with the idea that some situations are unforgiveable or irreconcilable.
The piece depicts yet another hybrid bunny boy standing next to a pile of lemons. Through the use of the lemon imagery, Richey harps on the old adage that you should "make lemonade out of lemons." Yet, the image futily depicts the bunny boy without hands to show that he can not make lemonade - or make a bad situation good.
In a large-scale mixed media piece titled "saying nothing and doing even more," Richey literally cut himself out of photographs of easily recognizable locations such as Disneyland and New York. These cut-out photos are displayed on a background of repeating Xerox pages inscribed with a cryptic "nothing" in a traditional cartoon bubble.
"(This piece) came out of a few specific situations with people on a trip etcetera (and) being in a certain time or place but feeling detached even though present," he said.
In the last mixed media series included in the show, "raven 1-5," Richey again employs Xerox images. This time, he has transfered them onto canvas and set them off dramatically by black and red acrylic paint.
Richey said through the piece, he wanted to show that people undergo life changing events from which they are irrevocably changed.
"'Raven 1-5' is about a person changing from one thing into another and the uncomfortableness of change and not being able to do anything about it," he said.
He explained many people draw the conclusion that, due to his use of raven imagery, he is alluding to Edgar Allen Poe.
"I can see how people would make the Poe associations even though that is not particularly what I was thinking of when making it," he said. "What is most important to me is that people bring their own meaning and experience to my work."
"Sometimes, sorry isn't enough" runs through Feb. 13 in the Rotunda Gallery in the Memorial Student Union.
