MIXED-MEDIA

Mixed-Media Installation by Deborah Brackenbury & John Gray
University of Florida, Gainsville, February 14, 1997,



Opening on Valentine's Day, and what better time to display our fetishized sentiment, "The Den and Other Delectables" is a mixed-media installation by artists John Gray and Deborah Brackenbury at the J. Wayne Reitz Union of the University of Florida, Gainsville.

A half-dozen large, ink-jet image composites on canvas of saints and superheroes by Gray filled the walls. Brackenbury's clothes rack held rubber-coated articles of clothing such as a "blood curdling" apron printed with photographic images. Her own martinizing? The various two and three-dimensional elements came together in a room arrangement of sofa, screen, chair, lamp and tables; all with images appliqued, fur-lined and rubberized. Gray also included a large, grommeted medley lashed to a frame and hung in the back corner of the space. Various rubber bunnies formed in Easter cake-molds revealed their contents. Two of my "faves" were the junebugs in an amber bunny, and the furry, mammal- within-and-poking-through a white cream bunny. It made my mouth water.

Interesting, as well, was the (University imposed) disclaimer that "no animals were harmed by the artists for this exhibition. "They merely recycled previously harmed animals for our edification and self-examination.



Rose Stasuk,
Gainsville, FL roric@gate.net