Oliver Hawk Holden's new solo show, Betty Number 22 Taken Down, is currently showing at First Amendment Gallery. The show is focused around portraiture and intuitively curated imagery, including multiple miniseries that reflect common imagery through the artist’s distinctive lens.

From broken billboard pieces and kinetic sculptures to wood carvings and relief paintings, each small series of work coalesces towards the structure of the entire body. Holden works in a fragmented way so that the presentation only coalesces naturally upon installation. He often includes both figures and text, mostly derived from common or mundane imagery and executed with a certain crudeness that shows through his skilled craftsmanship.

The show's title references a piece that was intended to be in the show but was removed. It infers both an inclusion and an exclusion, a seemingly irrelevant diversion from the instinctive direction of the show. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of a common theme in both Holden’s work and contemporary culture: names and symbols are unintentionally applied to things and people, which distract from the true nature of what something really is.

"Betty Number 22 Taken Down" closes on May 31st.