Phil Roach
Tacoma, Washington
Fairgrounds St. Pete Project
The Garden Below, Diorama invites guests to peer through a peephole inside The Bait Ball. Upon peeking through this mysterious peephole, viewers will get a glimpse of a hidden underwater world based on a local urban legend, The Minny Lights of St. Petersburg.
For this project, Phil Roach teamed up with collaborator Devon Brady to create a completely immersive experience.
The Bait Ball is a multi-media immersive kinetic sculptural installation. Taking its inspiration from schools of fish and human mosh pits, The Bait Ball explores the exquisite beauty and wonder of the real Florida landscape that is all around us – above our heads, and below our feet. The Bait Ball places viewers in a fantastical undersea experience that celebrates the power and beauty of one of the lynchpins of Florida’s aquatic ecosystem – the lowly mullet.
Bio
Phil Roach’s work situates the viewer in positions that question and compromise our perception of reality. Constructing dioramas from found and scaled objects, LCD screens and surveillance cameras viewed through a fisheye lens, Roach’s intricately detailed tableaus immerse the viewer into surreal spaces and places guided by their own voyeurism, imagination and curiosity to challenge perceptions of physical and personal space with the instinctual desire to see and know. Currently living and working in Tacoma, Washington, Roach exhibits nationally and internationally.