Drawing on the rich history of still-life painting, a new exhibit at the Brandywine Museum of Art examines ideas of wealth, waste, and overconsumption, writes Abigail Covington for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Abundance/Excess: A Contemporary Eye on Still Life showcases works by 10 contemporary artists, built around the Brandywine’s existing collection of Philadelphia still lifes, and is presented in two sections.
The first section, Abundance, features artwork that interrogates wealth distribution and explores the nation’s patterns of buying and selling, including pieces by local artists Kate Abercrombie and King Cobra.
The Excess section explores overconsumption and its environmental and social impacts. Many artists incorporated repurposed materials into their work, a fitting choice for a museum that also functions as a conservancy, said Kerry Bickford, associate curator at the Brandywine Museum of Art.
Others, including Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, approached excess more broadly, portraying it as a negative influence on the nation’s political and cultural climate.
Bickford views abundance and excess as part of the same spectrum, not opposing sides of a coin.
“It’s a continuum more than it is a dualism,” she said. “The question is always how much is too much?”
Read more about the Brandywine Museum of Art in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
