West Collection

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”.

“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”

“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.

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.

“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.