Sarah Whitmire’s mixed media extravaganza, Oracles, will be at the Gather Gallery (Hotel Indigo at Celebration Point) for just a few more days and, if you are in Gainesville, you absolutely must make an effort to see it. The six 6’ x 4’ mixed media on wood panels, each one framed in old pine 2” x 4” slabs, own the space. A cascade of imagery in sometimes assertive and sometimes muted colors captures you, as you hunt for the hidden text messages interspersed between the unclassifiable beings taking control of the picture plane. From a distance, each piece comes together into a very organic composition of what seems like different levels of symbolism into which you submerge. But get closer to see how masterfully a real jumble of mixed media can achieve that effect.

But it is in the show taken as a whole where Whitmire’s art really shines. You walk into a whole carefully planned and achieved experience of, not a series of art pieces, but a unified full gallery cohesive installation that surrounds you into Ms. Whitmire’s mythical sense of reality.