Floral Authority

Kate Abercrombie's untitled gouache on paper work (2005, 10 3/4 inches by 11 3/8 inches) hangs on her own wallpaper of hand-pulled silkscreen on paper-backed fabric.

by Susan Hagen

The cooperative artists' space Vox Populi has long been one of the best places to keep an eye on emerging talent in the Philadelphia art scene. Their current shows don't disappoint, particularly Kate Abercrombie's impressive installation of gouache drawings of plants, animals and landscapes on walls covered with her own handprinted floral fabric.

Abercrombie's exhibition features eight drawings (all completed in 2005) from two series inspired by the relationships between nature and urban living, one based on the landscape and the other on the corsage. From there, the drawings grow into a cornucopia of imagination and decorative excess — suggesting illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages and botanical illustrations updated for contemporary times. Eye-popping patterns collide within the individual pieces and in juxtaposition with each other and the walls, while the intimacy of her work draws us in for a closer look. For example, Corsage #2 combines brown silhouettes of a 1940s-style floral pattern delicately outlined in blue and orange with overlaid bouquets of flowers, including roses, pinks, zinnias and dogwood blossoms, all perfectly in their prime. An untitled drawing shows an idyllic, semipsychedelic landscape with a sky filled with blue-striped cabbages and tiny purple morning glories. Abercrombie says that the show's title refers to "a celebration of fleeting moments of nature in everyday life," yet these captivating drawings hint at bittersweet, escapist desires.

Also at Vox you can see Fauna, a series of eight new, sleek and minimal pieces by Kelley Roberts that advance her studies of the optical effects of enlarged and out-of-focus digital photographs. Roberts overlaps layers of translucent nature photographs, with animal and bird silhouettes cut out, to create shimmering, semiabstract landscapes. In the back gallery, guest artist Jonathan Berger has created a lilliputian world of "lost battles and failed utopias." It contains dusty little roller coasters, stacks of miniature swords (perfect for an army of Barbies!) and tiny graveyards of obelisks made from wood and metal scraps, old newsprint and leather. Berger lives in Brooklyn and is a member of the zany, Obie Award-winning performance group Circus Amok. Another guest artist, Roxana Perez-Mendez, presents Puerto Rico Airlines, a video that explores imagery of Puerto Rican identity and globalization, and longtime Vox member Brian Dennis has built a site-specific sculpture, Bridgehead (2), a large glittering plane sloped like a collapsed billboard, from strips of oxidized metal leaf and a willy-nilly structure made of balsa wood and bare bulbs.

Kate Abercrombie: Four O'clocks and Morning Glories (also on view: work by Kelley Roberts, Jonathan Berger, Brian Dennis and Roxana Perez-Mendez) Through March 28, Vox Populi, 1315 Cherry St., fourth floor, 215-568-5513

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there