Rock and Rose Bed (The Bed You Make is the Bed You Lie In)

Judy Darragh’s installations introduced the politics of ‘homelife’ into the gallery. Rock and Rose Bed was originally commissioned in 1989 for a series on installation practice at Artspace, Auckland. The twin beds, made from fake rocks and roses, toy with popular clichés about marriage – ‘it’s on the rocks’, ‘it’s a bed of roses’.

Darragh's works often exuberantly inhabit the public gallery space. In a 2004 interview she said, ‘The gallery wall is always a smooth, pampered surface which must not distract from the work it supports. I like the surreal qualities of the wall which is pierced or where there is slippage . . . I want to make the wall peel or bleed.’

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