Several women gave their bras to Allen Zaruba?s interactive larger-than-life exhibit.
Ocean, his eight-room installation in the shape of a wrecked ship, recently came ashore to Creative Alliance?s main gallery.
“The public is invited to add things into the hull,” said Zaruba, whose professional name is Alzaruba. “Some people have added jewelry, outrageous shoes ? eclectic extremities that come with being human.”
Alzaruba, a mixed-media artist based in Baltimore, encourages people “to respond [to Ocean] because the ship is a statement on the human condition.”
“Ocean is a 65-foot-long boat, kind of cast ashore,” said Jed Dodds, artistic director at Creative Alliance. “It?s broken open with entrances, but you more or less choose your own path.”
“It feels like you?re being swallowed by a whale when you walk down the throat of this thing,” he said. “You loose all sense of orientation.”
Ocean is Alzaruba?s unbridled creativity at its best, Dodd said. “[Alzaruba] really just embraces the spirit of excess and abundance that is pretty overwhelming when you see it in person.”
“A lot of people find it endlessly amusing, spending two hours inside the ship,” said Alzaruba, a Fulbright Scholar who studied in Korea.
Ocean?s tone swings from humor to serious issues such as “runaway consumerism and the way we treat each other,” he said. “It?s a visceral, tactile environment.”
Burned children?s shoes attached to the ship represent the innocent, Alzaruba said. X-rays and breathing masks in the ship “question the nature of our reality and bring up issues of our health and the frightening things that happen to us.”
“He draws people in,” said Liz Swanson, a Baltimore artist who follows Alzaruba?s work. “It?s a very deep and moving space. The boat reminds me that doing the next right thing [in life] can be as simple as just taking the next step.”
When Swanson enters a dimly lit room in Ocean, she is struck by the idea that “whether the lights are on or off, color exists. Whether [metaphorically] the lights are on or off, hope is present [in life.]”
Swanson believes Alzaruba calls tothe good in people.
“He invites people to participate, to look at his work and understand him in a deeper way but also understand themselves.”
Ocean by Alzaruba
» Venue: Creative Alliance at The Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave.
» Info: 410-276-1651; www.creativealliance.org
