MONTREAL.- Bradley Ertaskiran announced representation of Dawit L. Petros.
The work of Dawit L. Petros is informed by studies of global modernisms, theories of diaspora, and postcolonial studies. Throughout the past decade, he has focused on a critical re-reading of the entanglements between colonialism and modernity. These concerns derive from lived experiences: Petros is the child of Eritrean emigrants, and spent formative years in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Kenya before settling in central Canada. The overlapping cultures, voices, and tenets of this constellation produced a dispersed consciousness, global and transnational in stance and outlook. His works aim for an introspective and textured analysis of the historical factors that produced these migratory conditions. Petros installs photographs, moving images, sculptural objects, and sound work according to performative, painterly, or site responsive logics. Moving between the works echoes the extensive travel taken to produce them; while recurrent visual or formal devices quietly indicate the complex backdrops against which his projects are set.
Dawit L. Petros' first solo exhibition with Bradley Ertaskiran will open in September 2021. A selection of works will be presented during Art Toronto, October 28 to November 8.
Dawit L. Petros, born in Eritrea, lives and works in Montreal and Chicago. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, Boston, a BFA in Photography from Concordia University, Montreal, and a BA in History from the University of Saskatchewan. Recent exhibition venues include the University of Buffalo Art Galleries, Buffalo (2020), The Power Plant, Toronto (2020), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Chicago (2020), Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo (2020), 13th Biennial of Havana, Matanzas (2019), Huis Marseille Museum of Photography, Amsterdam (2018), Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa (2018) and Prospect.4 New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans (2017). His works have been recognized with awards including an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and an Artist Residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.