Dawit L. Petros

Overview
Dawit L. Petros
Dawit L. Petros, Untitled (Epilogue IV), Nefasit, Eritrea, 2019, Archival color pigment prints, 76.2 x 95.3 cm, 30 x 37 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemproary.
Dawit L. Petros is a visual artist born in Eritrea and based in Montreal. Working with installation, photography, research and extensive travels, his practice centres around a critical rereading of the relationship between African histories and European modernism. In recent projects, he employs abstraction as an act of translation to push against naturalised ways of understanding form, colour and subjectivity. By drawing upon forms rooted in diverse histories, Petros' artistic language enables a metaphorically rich articulation of the fluidity of contemporary transnational experiences and attendant issues of displacement, place-making and cultural negotiation.

Recent exhibitions include: As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, Saatchi Gallery, London (group - 2024); Inner Spirits and Outer Landscapes, Hangar Artistic Research Center, Lisbon, Portugal (group - 2024); From the Edge of the Horizon, Part I & Part 2, Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada (solo - 2025); Recent Works, Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, Canada (solo - 2025); A World in Common, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany (group - 2025); Prospetto a Mare, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago IL, USA (solo - 2024); A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, London, UK (group - 2024); Trace: Formations of Likeness, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (group - 2023); As We Rise, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem MA, USA  (group - 2023); Africa Supernova, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands (group - 2023); Ozangé, Spanish Biennial of African Photography, Malaga, Spain, (group - 2022); Spazio Disponible, Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (solo - 2022); Realistic Utopias, KØS Museum for Art in Public Space, Nørregade in Køge, Denmark (group - 2022); 1,000 Miles Per Hour, Beeler Gallery, Columbus OH, USA (group - 2022); Spazio Disponible, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada (solo - 2021); Prospetto a Mare, Art Gallery of Guelph, Guelph, Canada (solo - 2021); Gaps, holes, fissures, and frictions, Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, Canada (solo - 2021); To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven, Belgium (group - 2021); A Recurrrence of Forms, Space 204 Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN, USA (solo - 2020); Spazio Disponibile, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, New York NY, USA (solo - 2020); Spazio Disponible, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (solo - 2020); Here We Are, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (group - 2018); Nowhere Is A Place, Rencontres de Bamako, Bamako Biennale, Bamako, Mali  (group - 2017); Prospect.4 The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans LA, USA (group - 2017); Recent Histories, Walther Collection Project Space, New York (group - 2016); Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands (grup - 2016); The Stranger’s Notebook, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City MO, USA  (2016); The View From Here, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (group - 2016); 56th Venice Biennale international exhibition, Venice, Italy (2015); Under Another Name, the Studio Museum in Harlem NY, USA  (group - 2014); Sense of Place, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA, USA (group - 2013); Earth Matters: The Land As Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, The National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, USA (group - 2013); Mimesis, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Lianzhou, China (group - 2011).

He was awarded an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012. In 2021 he received the title of Museum of Contemporary Photography Terra Foundation for American Art Fellow and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Art Photography.

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