Twelve Gates Arts (12G) is proud to present In Medias Res(idency), a group exhibition featuring works by Dara Haskins, Mia Fabrizio and Shwarga Bhattacharjee, opening on Friday November 17th, 2023 at Atelier Art Gallery.
Opening Reception: November 17th, 2023, 6-8pm (Atelier Art Gallery located at 1301 N 31st St Suite 2, Philadelphia, PA 19121.)
Exhibition Information: In Medias Res(idency) is a group exhibition featuring works by Dara Haskins, Mia Fabrizio and Shwarga Bhattacharjee, opening on Friday November 17th, 2023 at Atelier Art Gallery. The artists are part of the inaugural The Philadelphia Residency (TPR) established by Twelve Gates Arts. The show's title is a Latin phrase that means "in the middle of things," and it captures the spirit of this show of work by the three artists. The word "media" in the show's title gestures to the various practices on display: everything from installations and painting to sculpture and video work. Curated by Alpesh Kantilal Patel, this exhibition is an opportunity to mark a moment - the completion of the six-month program - and to present their work so that there can be a fruitful conversation with the community. The artists have generously allowed for work at different stages - some complete and others still in formation - to be installed in the gallery. It is on view from November 17th to December 15th 2023 at Atelier Art Gallery located at 1301 N 31st St Suite 2, Philadelphia, PA 19121.
Atelier Art Gallery Hours:
Wednesday and Thursday: 11-4pm, Friday: 12-4pm or by appointment at 215- 253 -8578
The Philadelphia Residency (TPR) is a six-month career-building and creation module established by Twelve Gates Arts (12G) to provide early-career artists with physical and communal space, resources, and industry knowledge to plant roots and flourish in Philadelphia. The pilot residency convenes a cohort of three promising Philadelphia-based artists in a collaborative environment for creation, skill building, and exchange. In addition to providing studio space, living stipends, and exhibition opportunities, TPR hinges on resident collaboration and discourse. To this end, the residency offers a robust season of participatory exposure programming that not only empowers residents to seek out the skill sets and knowledge they desire, but also provides direct access to Philadelphia’s makers, writers, creators, and producers. Ultimately, TPR is an opportunity to create, culminating in a final group exhibition.
Dara Haskins (b. 1992 Baltimore, MD) works primarily in figurative oil and mixed media paintings. She is currently working on a series of large and small figure paintings called TASTE. It explores body language, color, and its connection to various environments. She previously created a series called “Havana time” inspired by her travels to Cuba. It features large and small-scale paintings of objects and people in domestic and natural environments that reflect the beauty of connection within the African Diaspora. Her work has been seen in Philadelphia at Commonweal Gallery, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Rush Arts Philadelphia, and at Gaa Gallery in Cologne, Germany. Haskins is an InLiquid Wind Fellow (2022-2023) and is a recipient of the Mural Arts Fellowship for Black Artists (2021). She received her BFA from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019 and lives and works in Philadelphia.
Mia Fabrizio was born and raised in the Greater Philadelphia Area. She received her B.F.A from Tyler School of Art in 2002 and her M.Ed. from Arcadia University in 2006. She taught art in K-12 classrooms for a dozen years before graduating with her M.F.A. from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2020. Fabrizio explores identity and social constructs through her layered portraits, mixed media collages, and sculptures. She received Montague Travel Research Grant Awards in 2018 and 2019 and the Museum Council Sculpture Prize in 2020. She served as Sculpture faculty at SMFA at Tufts University and at Maine College of Art & Design. Fabrizio currently lives and works in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Shwarga Bhattacharjee is an artist from Bangladesh, currently based in North Philadelphia, PA. He has shown his work in Twelve Gates Arts, CFEVA, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Vox Populi, Fleisher art memorial, Dhaka Art Summit, and other reputed venues. He is the recipient of the Peter Benoliel Fellow at the Center For Emerging Visual Artists, and Michelle Angela Ortiz Fellow at Da Vinci Art Alliance in Philadelphia. He has participated in residencies at Britto Student Residency, Jentel Artist Residency, and Chautauqua Institution School of Art. In 2021, he participated in the Spring Curatorial Residency program at the New York Artists Equity Association in New York City. He also worked as a children’s book illustrator with Room to Read. He received an MFA in drawing and painting from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, and a BFA in drawing and painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka.
Alpesh Kantilal Patel is associate professor of contemporary art and visual culture at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, and a lead faculty member of Chautauqua School of Art’s summer residency program in New York. His art historical scholarship, curation and criticism reflect his queer, anti-racist, and transnational approach to contemporary art. His first monograph Productive Failure: Writing Queer Transnational South Asian Art Histories (Manchester University Press, 2017) mobilizes “affirmative criticality" and "productive failure" as conceptual frameworks to produce a more ethical, entangled, and transparent practice of writing (art) history. In 2022, he will be a residential fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Loughborough University, England, where he will work on his new monograph, tentatively titled Transregional Entanglements: Sexual Artistic Geographies. He received his bachelor’s from Yale University and his doctorate from the University of Manchester.
About Twelve Gates Arts
Founded in 2011, Twelve Gates Arts (12G) is an arts gallery located in Old City, Philadelphia that uplifts South & West Asian diasporic artistic voices within the local cultural landscape. 12G quarterly visual exhibitions and community events focus on an emerging art landscape that maps the cultures of migration, inclusive of the systems that influence it: race, gender, creed, empire, and economy. A nod to the archetypal fortified walls that surround Imperial medieval cities worldwide, our namesake underlies our exhibitions and events, which celebrate the melange of cultural identity that foments as peoples move and settle.