Brandywine Museum of Art: ABUNDANCE/EXCESS: A CONTEMPORARY EYE ON STILL LIFE

This exhibition considers bounty, accumulation, and waste in 21st century American culture through the work of 10 contemporary artists, including Kate Abercrombie, Sungho Bae, Katie Butler, Ilana Harris-Babou, artist collaborators Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, King Cobra, Tamara Kostianovsky, sTo Len, Cara Romero, and Misha Wyllie. The exhibition will be on view at the Brandywine from March 15 through June 7, 2026.

Still life, at its core, is the artistic depiction of things, which is explored through a contemporary lens in more than 45 works across a variety of mediums, ranging from paintings to sculptures to mixed media and video. The works included in Abundance/Excess frequently reflect each artists’ cultural attitude toward that which they acquire, consume, and live amongst. Many of the artworks in the exhibition utilize the same subject matter as historic still lifes, with flowers, fruit, meat, fish, matches, and skulls making frequent appearances. The artists also revisit conceptual tropes and techniques from historic still life including decaying food, indications of the passage of time, and symbolic juxtapositions to consider where wealth comes from, who holds it, and how we find and create it in our own lives.