Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present our first solo show, “Great!” with Cathrine Whited, whose deadpan drawings transform mundane and everyday items into revered icons. The show will open with a free public reception on Friday, September 6, from 5 to 8pm at our Chicago location alongside a solo show by Aya Nakamura in Gallery One. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.

When asked for a show title she said “Great!” after much thought. After double-checking that she wasn’t just saying great and that the title should be “Great!” And she indeed thought that should be the title.

Whited’s charming, slyly simple drawings combine image and text to document and archive the world around her, with subjects ranging from household objects to food to cartoon characters. Her process starts with making a list — “What’s in my fridge” or “Things that make up a sandwich” — as a jumping off point. Each item on the list is drawn with graphite and colored pencil, distilled to its essential elements, and labeled underneath, akin to a Victorian-era scientific journals and classifications of nature. Whited is meticulous in this process as an index of erasure is often visible, marking her desire to render the image, and especially the text, perfectly. Her subject-centered renderings are neat, clean, and void of background and are a vehicle for viewers to isolate, experience, and analyze our collective everyday interaction with often overlooked objects and culture that surrounds us.

For this show, Whited utilized a list of every piece of furniture in her room, so we are privy to ornate (for her) drawings of her desk/table, ceiling fan, shelves, bed and more. Chuck E. Cheese, the family entertainment chain of restaurants, has long beheld Whited’s psyche as she’s made dozens, if not hundreds of drawings of the animatronic characters that enliven the pizza palace. These are some of her most exquisite drawings, with erasure after erasure, struggling to perfectly capture the likeness and especially render the text, the residue of this labor evidenced by richer surfaces than most of her work. We’ll be showing portraits of RoboDog the Dog Robot, Pasqualy P. Pieplate the Bunny, Jasper T. Jowls the Cowboy Beagle, Cheeto the Leopard Gecko, and Chuck E. Cheese the Ratolphin. A third series catalogs the hijinks occurring when Cathrine has a sleepover at good friend Candi’s house, most prominently their desire to grow human tails that wag.

Cathrine Whited is a studio resident at Visionaries + Voices, a non-profit arts organization that provides support for artists with disabilities, offering them professional studio space and that allows them to grow professionally and personally. Whited has been included in shows at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Western Exhibitions in Chicago and Skokie, The Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, The Carnegie Art Center in Covington, KY, Indigo Hippo in Cincinnati, and Summertime Gallery in Brooklyn. Her work has been written about on the website Elephant, The Columbus Dispatch and Hyperallergic, and has been featured on Bounty Paper Towels. She lives and works in Cincinnati.

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