In this work, Dawn Ng presents the time-lapsed melting of a pigment-infused block of ice, using its subtle graduations of colour to explore the passage and experience of time. The Baroque era’s fascination with time emphasised its temporality and fleeting nature, presenting it as moving, changing and impermanent, rather than the static timeless scenes common in the Renaissance. 

For Baroque artists, time was made visible by capturing the dramatic gestures of a fleeting moment, showing the transitory nature of light, the use of still-life objects – such as decaying fruit and wilting flowers (known as vanitas) and the presence of twisting figures or flowing drapery, implying an unfolding of events. Ng’s lush subject invokes the Baroque logic of a decaying vanitas object through its transitional state – as it thaws and melts – suggesting the sense of time running out. As with many Baroque paintings, the subject of Ng’s work is centred in the middle foreground, surrounded by darkness. Combined with the work’s shallow staging, this compositional device propels the melting block towards the viewer, infringing on the barrier between its world and our own.