CONJURING THE DEMONS AND MYSTERIES OF SOCIETY THROUGH PAINTING

For Collage as Painting, Kate Abercrombie and Trevor Winkfield look at mysterious, esoteric, and sometimes troubling aspects of everyday life.

Stan Mir

Kate Abercrombie, “Conjuring” (2017), gouache on Arches paper board, 20 × 16 inches (all images courtesy of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery)

PHILADELPHIA — The morning I began this review, my street was littered with used scratch-off lottery tickets from the local corner store. Some were stuck to tires; others were windblown against the gutter. One was smashed flat in the middle of the road. As I walked in one direction on the sidewalk, a guy walked towards me down the middle of the street. When he saw the smashed ticket, he picked it up, brushed it off, and slipped it in his pocket. There was both hope and anxiety in his gesture.

In the exhibition, Collage as Painting: Kate Abercrombie and Trevor Winkfield, currently on view at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Abercrombie’s paintings reflect the financial anxieties and desires I see in my neighbors, and in myself. “Multiplier” (2017) resembles a poster of someone’s used scratch-off tickets. It feels desolate and melancholy. Some of the tickets have comical names, but in Abercrombie’s painting they appear for what they are, mocking and embarrassing — for example, “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.” Others tease with long-shot promises: “$1,000 a Week for Life” and “Cash Time.” Abercrombie’s poster-sized arrangement estranges these objects from our typical experience, reminding us of the fettered hopes accompanying every scratch on these tickets.

In much of the work on display, Abercrombie skillfully depicts the paperwork of our transactional world. “Morning Sun…Evening Moon Part 2” (2017) chronicles a vortex of debt through a messy spread of opened envelopes. Monetary sums painted in large numerals, ranging from $235.00 to $761.10, haunt the surface of the painting, along with the official logo of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, and American flag postage stamps. The words “Past due” are penciled in with paint near the top, while a “PAID” stamp appears on an ACLU envelope along the left side. That slice of activism is nearly drowned under the rest of the debts. One of the great ironies in this painting is the word “important,” which appears twice. What’s important to the billers may not be to the debtors. Abercrombie’s painting offers a glimpse into the financial challenges of the citizen with a conscience…………..

https://hyperallergic.com/423125/collage-as-painting-kate-abercrombie-and-trevor-winkfield-fleisher-ollman-gallery-2018/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekend%20Jan%2028%202018&utm_content=Weekend%20Jan%2028%202018+CID_cd474ecb3b122cd6cb194a30089531b7&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=Conjuring%20the%20Demons%20and%20Mysteries%20of%20Society%20through%20Painting