Margot Samel

About the Gallery
Margot Samel's program is highly research driven, fostering exhibitions by artists of international backgrounds in all stages of their careers. A key area of focus is historic and contemporary artists from the Baltic region.

About the presentation
Margot Samel will present recent paintings by Olivia Jia. Made with what the artist describes as a “nocturnal palette,” these scenes evoke a state between sleep and waking. Jia’s compositions frequently depict imagined books and ephemera, incorporating material she has collected or that belong to her family members. Ideas of kinship, heritage, longing, and belonging are negotiated through these constellations of elements, informed by Jia’s own diasporic identity as the child of Chinese immigrants to the United States. The somberly lit surfaces upon which these objects and images are depicted are at once tabletops or pinboards upon which objects might be placed, and psychic spaces onto which desire might be projected.