West Collection

“You Can Do Anything, Don’t You Know?”, 2014, Acrylic, spray paint on panel, 48 x 60” by Paul Wackers is installed in Meadowlands on SEI’s campus in Oaks, PA. “Wackers works from personal experience, pulling from objects and places he sees, feels and keeps close. He makes objects and paintings to try to understand what they are, what they mean, and how he should understand them. Many of the subjects are things that seem very familiar but through the process of painting or sculpture become confused our unreal because of the associations created within the picture”

Artist Kim Alsbrooks' 'White Trash Series' lines the hallway at Stillwater at SEI in Oaks. The series is expression of her frustration with the prevailing ideologies in the Southern United States. Class distinction, in particular, seemed to her to be based on a combination of myth, biased history and bizarre sentimentality about old wars and social dynamics. By juxtaposing antique portraits, once painted on ivory, with flattened beer cans and fast food packaging the artist hopes to even the playing field, challenging the current perception of the societal elite. All works are oil on aluminum. “Susan Johnstone”, 2019, 9 1/4 x 41/2”, “Rachel Levy”, 2019, 6 3/4 x 3 1/2”, Olivia Debois”, 2019, 8 x 4 1/2”, Aaron Corwine”, 2019, 7 x 3 3/4”, “Mrs. John LaBruce (Martha Pawley)”, 2012, 8 x 5”.

5 out of 12 works in the collection by Damien Davis are on view in our gallery at SEI. "Eric Garner (Blackamoors Collage #348)", 2020, Brayla Stone (Blackamoors Colage #356), 2020, "Emmett Till (Blackamoors Collage #357)", 2020 Laser-Cut Plexiglass and Stainless Steel Hardware, 11 1/2 x 6 x 1”. "Playing Games (Blackmoors Collage #129).ai", 2018, Laser-cut plexiglass, CNC, milled plywood and Stainless Steel hardware, 60 x 60 x 11”. "Black Engineer (Blackamoors Collage #133)", 2018, Laser-cut plexiglass, CNC milled plywood and Stainless Steel hardware, 60 x 68 x 11”. " "His practice explores historical representations of blackness by seeking to unpack the visual language of various cultures and question how these societies code/decode representations of race through craft, design and digital modes of production."

“Portrait of a Wrestler #117” by Mickalene Thomas, 2007, rhinestones, acrylic, enamel on panel, 24 x20” was collected in 2007 and will be on view in an upcoming exhibition at SEI. This painting is one of 3 by Thomas in the West Collection. “Not only do her masterful mixed-media paintings, photographs, films, and installations command space, they occupy eloquently while dissecting the intersecting complexities of black and female identity within the Western canon”

“Gregor Samsa’s Other Dream” by Alyson Shotz, 1998, resin and steel, 72 x 50 x 50in. acquired in 2001, is installed in the Rotunda at SEI’s campus in Oaks, PA. Shotz is known for large scale sculptures that subvert their own physicality in order to explore the phenomenological experience of space, gravity, light and matter.

“Host” by Wilmer Wilson IV, 2018, 48 x 192 x 2 1/4”, staples and pigment paper on wood is installed on SEI’s campus in Oaks. Wilmer Wilson IV (b. 1989) investigates the marginalization and care of Black bodies in contemporary life. Born in Richmond, VA and based in Philadelphia, Wilson is concerned with “the way that blackness is shaped in and by city space” and interested in “producing possibilities for representation that exist apart from global advertising strategies.

“Dream Ride 5,6,7”, 2010, by Ghost of a Dream, 42 x 74 x 161” is made of discarded used lottery tickets from the US and China, mdf and plexiglass. It is modeled after a mid 80s Lamborghini Countach. The New York-based collaborative, comprised of sculptor Lauren Was and painter Adam Eckstrom documents and critically explores the futile contemporary materialist society that is constantly on the search for a newer and better life.

Welcoming visitors to Valley View, SEI’s newest building, “Plenty of Eyes” by Arden Bendler Browning, acrylic, flasche, gouache on tyvek, 114 x 156”.

Philadelphia based artist Arden Bendler Browning creates large paintings, small works on paper, virtual reality (VR) environments, and public art. Her work explores movement, the desire for travel, the effect of digital imagery on perception and memory, and finding wonder and escape through immersive spaces. Her work hovers between landscape and abstraction.

In 2021 Scottish artist Rory MacArthur gifted a number of works to the West Collection. The occasion of the gift was Rory leaving his Brooklyn studio after 25 years to return to Scotland. Rory’s works have been part of the West Collection since 2004.

The paintings are otherworldly three-dimensional objects, luminous, organic and brightly colored. They are made through a painstaking process of carving, sanding and sealing layers of styrofoam, which are then painted with roller and airbrush to dazzling ends.

The West Collection recently acquired “Misogyny’s Indoctrination” and “The Closing Act” by Nazeer Sabree. Nazeer Sabree, born on March 9, 1998, is a contemporary visual artist from West Philadelphia. Nazeer's work is generally and most notably focused on depicting the dichotomy of everyday life in black culture. The themes explored in his works are individual and shared cultural experiences, identity, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, social constructs, mental health, belonging, and African American history.

“Generator” by Chris Sauter was just installed in the Lower Rotunda at SEI. The gorge in the bed is in the shape of two spooning bodies and contains a scale model of the Hoover Dam with power lines extended across the bed. Both marriage and hydroelectric dams are man-made constructs built to restrict and direct something else whether it be power or culture.

“Tree of 40 Fruit” by Sam Van Aiken in bloom at SEI. The grafted fruit tree includes heirloom and antique varieties of peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, cherry and almond.