Process

Limbo

1991
Assemblage with ultraviolet light and cast concrete
51 x 23 x 27 inches
Blacklight illuminates phosphor to create an apparently infinite space inside the chamber.

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Brudniak further imbues his work with a sense of past through highly worked patina. Limbo, an old refrigerator with a safe deposit box lock and a typewriter on its door, was treated with acid, salt and water and set on fire to achieve a crusty, rusted surface that evokes an old and decrepit chamber. Upon opening its door, one finds a cement block with [sic a small, rectangular opening] covered by bars. Through the bars, a dungeon of blue light is visible—an abyss that represents the mind as it tumbles into the darkness of human anxiety.

SANDRA GOLDMAN – Austin American-Statesman

The primary element in this work is a refrigerator that the artist has let rust. Gerald Burns, a writer, says Brudniak is a master of rust. When the door is opened, there is the glow of a brilliant cobalt blue light. It shines through a metal grate that covers an opening in the cement wall that fills the refrigerator’s cavity. Limbo is an abode of souls barred from heaven through no fault of their own or it is a place or state of containment or oblivion.

PAUL HARRIS – Personal Anxieties, Dysfunction & Spiritual Dilemmas