Holly Wong’s Incantations

Incantations, a solo exhibition by Holly Wong

On view from October 29 to December 14, 2024

Panel Discussion & Reception: Friday, November 1, 4:45 – 8:00 PM

Bridgette Mayer Gallery is thrilled to announce Incantations, Wong’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition will be on view from Tuesday, October 29 to Saturday, December 14, 2024. A panel discussion on Trauma, Art, & Transformation with Holly Wong, Gallery Director Bridgette Mayer, Abstract Artist Dr. James George, and Inaugural Director George Family Center for Healing Arts Morgan Yacoe, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will take place on Friday, November 1st from 4:30 – 6:00 PM, with an opening reception immediately following at the gallery.

Incantations features a new series of collaged paintings on shaped aluminum, mixed media drawings on wood panels and an immersive installation of heat molded acrylic. A total of eleven collaged paintings on shaped aluminum, four drawings and a room-sized installation will be on view.

The show’s title references Wong’s artistic journey which led to creating a bridge from pain to joy. The work explores the power of healing through mining of memory and the revealed beauty of personal transformation. By sublimating the scars of trauma and violence within the work the wounds can be alchemized into a new resilience. Wong uses a multitude of materials including oil paint, graphite, charcoal, alcohol and acrylic ink, colored pencil, as well as silverpoint on paper, all of which is then cut and densely layered onto aluminum dibond with archival adhesives. She begins these richly colored pieces by painting or drawing detailed closeups of crime scenes or bruised and battered skin. From there, she incorporates aquatic and botanical elements with a goal of emphasizing the brokenness of traumatic memory but also the healing that occurs with the passage of time and literally the overgrowth and reclaiming of nature.

Panel Discussion at PAFA
November 1st, 4:30pm – 6:00pm
118 N. Broad Street
Rhoden Auditorium
Samuel MV Hamilton Building, 1st floor
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Exhibition Reception
November 1st, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Bridgette Mayer Gallery
709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Read the full press release here.