On View at James Oliver Gallery June 7th - 15th, 2024:
Pent-Up featured seven artists based in Philadelphia and New York City spanning painting, photography, textiles, and sculpture. The week-long exhibition referenced folk art and traditional imagery, depicting heartwarming, heart-wrenching, and all around inexplicable scenes familiar to those living in metropolitan areas. The selected works coalesce to investigate the dynamic of harmony and chaos as complementary forces, and comment on damaging narratives targeting cities lacking wealth and resources. The use of unconventional materials, such as auto glass and asphalt, place the viewer in an intimate scene of action with a strong sense of recollection.
Molly Burt-Westvig is a visual artist with a practice spanning across modes and media, from painting and photography to video and installation. Her work questions the history of landscape painting and ideas of the sublime, bridging the immaterial experiences of the digital with the embodied presence of our physical world through projected video, sculpture and salvaged objects. Made between her studio in Philadelphia and the scrapyards beyond, it draws upon salvaged materials from the city itself like broken auto parts and glass to make moments which blur the edge between beauty and violence.
Molly Burt-Westvig
Honestly We’ve Been Better
Glitched TC2 jacquard weaving
72x35”
2023
Molly Burt-Westvig
Asphalt Elegy
Acrylic, chalk and oil on asphalt encrusted panel
11x14”
Molly has participated in numerous residencies including Gullkistan, PILOTENKUCHE and Anderson Ranch, exhibiting nationally and internationally. In 2023 she was featured in the MFA edition of New American Paintings, and in 2024 her writing and work was published in Peer Review Volume II. https://www.mollyburtwestvig.com
Sakura Hartman is a multi-disciplinary artist from Philadelphia, exploring themes of the spirit, religion, nature, and deterioration as they intersect with surveillance and technological advancement. She is currently pursuing a BFA in painting with a minor in printmaking from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts just in time for the collapse of the institution. She loves walking around, hates phonies, dreams of standing under a waterfall. She has recently developed a burning desire to create wood sculptures.
Gods Will (wood, spray paint, staples, India ink) was creating as a result of an overwhelming fascination with patterns, numbers and license plates. It is based on a real vanity plate she saw on a contemplative walk that haunted her for weeks.
Born from the Sun is an ode to the transformative power of spring, where the sun's radiance ignites a renewed sense of vitality and optimism. This artwork celebrates the cyclical nature of life and the continual rebirth of creativity.
Loon Laughlin, an emerging glass artist, draws inspiration from the captivating interplay of color and pattern. They currently study Glass Art at Salem County Community College.
Loon Laughlin
Born from the Sun
Glass, glue
2024
