"I would describe… like the essence, essence, essence of it is 'the theater of the dinner table'," Kate Pincus-Whitney told us in our Summer Quarterly. That is my entry point into that space. I'm looking at identity, at the object’s identity of things. I'm synthesizing and pairing, combining to make these larger allegorical scenes." We included her in our movement issue because, indeed, the way the table comes together is through a myriad of actions and movements, and in her new exhibition, The Gods are in the Kitchen, on view at Fredericks & Freiser in NYC, is more dense, bright and bold than ever.
As the gallery notes, "From food and drink to flora and books, the artist’s vibrant objects invite the viewers into their ritual space. Teeming with these objects whose transmutability allows them to function as signs and symbols, Pincus-Whitney’s allegorical compositions are at once hermeneutic diagrams and Jungian sandplay wherein the audience becomes totally immersed amongst myriad referents. These referents are subsequently pulled together and cast aside in narrative permutations depending on individual experiences. The things that populate the canvases bubble to the surface in a cosmic mush like words demanding to be cohered into a poem."
These new works are frantic in some ways. What do we bring with us? What is the perfect gathering? How do we gather? What are the things dear to us? There is a rush here to fit all that we can think of and cherish our memories of objects. Pincus-Whitney may be paintings still-lifes, but they are brilliantly alive. —Evan Pricco