Artist Talk: Tom McGill, ‘an average day’

‘an average day’ is a mixed media installation in a windowless 12’ x 11.5’ room grappling with the reality of the Palestinian experience in Gaza and the West Bank during the year following October 7, 2023. The door of the room is made of 2 x 4’s, 1.25” diameter wooden dowels, and barbed wire. The room is visible through the door. The walls and ceiling of the room are painted black, the floor is white. The only light source in the room is a small flood light hanging by its wire from the ceiling in the middle of the room over a small table (20” x 20”). There is a book on the table in the middle of the room bound with rings embedded in the table. 

Trixie’s List: What inspired you to create an average day?

Tom McGill: an average day is a reaction to the state of Israel’s rhetorical and military actions in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7, 2023, which include war crimes and genocide. I created the two books in the piece to represent three-dimensionally the daily average toll the state of Israel’s actions take on Palestinians and to highlight, page by page, the individuality of those killed, injured, or missing. The assembled book on the table shares a sense of mass and weight. The sheets of the second book which are hung around the room on barbed wire convey the tragic number of victims by the way in which the book fills space. 

The screen-printed keys in the first book, which are assembled on the table in the middle of the room, are uniform, except for the difference in color. The pages of the second book are unique paintings containing uniform screen-printed watermelon slices. Together, they highlight that each victim is a unique individual, something that can get lost when dealing with such large numbers. 

The scroll of names on the TV in the shelf niche adds a time element (one hour to complete) to the experience of those numbers. Creating an average day took a good deal of time to make and has been a contemplative experience (not really something that can be taken away by the viewer). Meditating on what has happened to Palestinians following October 7, 2023, not only informed the process, but led to many choice shifts which account for the final product. 

Trixie’s List: What is your process?

Tom McGill: I was considering how to represent the Palestinian experience in Gaza and the West Bank when one of our studios at 46 Green Street Studios became vacant. I originally thought of creating one large canvas (20′ x 6′) with individual images to represent the average number of Palestinians killed, injured, and missing per day over the year following October 7, 2023. Since the space was available, I decided to create an immersive experience to represent those killed, injured or missing with images on book pages. All of the installation’s elements (screen-printed and painted pages) were created in the same space as the installation. Cutting the paper, hand-screen printing each page, and painting each page of the second book took a full week of work. It quickly became a type of meditation. The final construction of the piece (the choice of black for the color of the walls and ceiling, the use of barbed wire to hang sheets of book two, the creation of the barbed wire door, the scroll of the names of Palestinians killed on the flat screen) came out of that meditation.

Trixie’s List: When can it be viewed? 

Tom McGill: The work is in Studio 5 of 46 Green Street Studios. It can be viewed during the week between 10am and 5pm when the front door is unlocked. I’ll be in the building this weekend (April 5-6) Saturday from 3pm-7pm and Sunday 1pm-5pm. Next weekend it will be open both Saturday and Sunday from 1pm-5pm and we’ll do a closing April 12 from 5pm-8pm.