Jane Lackey at Meadow Brook Art Gallery, Oakland University

Jane Lackey's roots as a fiber artist (she is head of the fiber-arts program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art) were apparent in this selection of multimedium works made between 1999 and 2004. Lackey frequently draws on genetic code research and written language for the content of her work.

The wall relief genePool 2+1 (2002) consists of two concave, elliptically shaped pieces of cork, each measuring about 2 1/2 by 7 1/2 feet and hung horizontally. Looking a bit like surfboards or medical stretchers, the pieces of cork have been painted with several layers of yellow and white acrylic. Circular indentations and rows of black dots are scattered across the surface. In fact, these are lines of DNA information that Lackey has transformed into a seemingly random, abstract pattern that resembles some incomprehensible form of writing.

The installation Webster's Line (1999) addresses the archiving of documented language. Inserted into a series of slots in a wall are dictionary pages that Lackey has meticulously cut into 1-inch, vertical fragments and bound together from behind with polyurethane. The severed ends of paper and periodic thumb-index segments blend together into some sort of barely legible map.

Books are also employed in her series "SNPs/slips" (2000-04). The title refers to single nucleotide polymorphisms--DNA locations where one person's genes differ from another's. While researching different texts about speech and speech production, Lackey found printed examples of slips of speech. She also added some combinations of her own. She then engraved selected phrases, including "Cuff of coffee," "try to understrand" and "a grift for Christmas," onto the covers of various dictionary bindings in a way that makes them appear to be part of the books' real titles. The altered dictionary covers are displayed detached from their pages and laid out flat in lacquer frames.

Lackey's work is a deeply thoughtful, and at times playful, consideration of how the slightest variation in a pattern can result in dramatic changes. A missed stitch in a piece of fabric may add or detract from its beauty, a slip of speech may open the way for poetry, the consequence of an improperly read medical diagnosis or a missing gene, on the other hand, is potentially lethal.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group