“My work relies on the experiences that others bring to it.  Our ability to create narratives when presented with an object or scene with little to no information goes beyond our own experiences , going deeper into our subconscious and evolutionary past. Say you are walking down a street and see a suitcase, alone on a porch. Our minds are immediately flooded with scenarios, almost uncontrollably. Has a person come to visit, or is someone leaving? If they are leaving, why? Was there an argument or is their son going off to college?  What if that same suitcase was alone on the corner of a busy street? In our present day lives of news hype and fear, the narratives may take a more sinister turn. Is it a terrorist bomb, a money drop off in a drug deal, or has someone been simply distracted by a cell phone call and left without it. For some reason we are predisposed for this behavior, beyond shear curiosity. Maybe it is an instinctual mechanism imbedded deep in our DNA, once needed for survival? In the making of P.O.D. I take advantage of these tendencies while using them as a tool to learn more about the human condition.”       -Phil Roach

By examining our perceptions of physical and personal space with the instinctual and recently exploited desires for voyeurism, as demonstrated by the popularity of “reality” television shows, Roach creates situations that place the viewer in positions that question and compromise our perception of reality. With the use of an oculus (also known as a door peep hole) he controls the experiences of the audience while the viewer is manipulated by their own desire to see and know.  Using dioramas constructed from found and scale objects, as well as stage-like lighting, LCD screens and surveillance video cameras, Roach creates intricately detailed environments that suggest, but do not lead to direct narratives. The scenes created may vary from the spaces we occupy in everyday life such as parking garages, bedrooms, attics or basements, to representations of the inner spaces of the human body. These images create an odd feeling of familiarity that are often disturbed with a dreamlike, surreal twisting of space by the addition of caverns, passageways, and the introduction of out of scale objects.  Roach received his M.F.A. from the University of Washington in 2000 and has been showing his work nationally and internationally. He currently resides in Tacoma, WA.