Dawit L. Petros is a visual artist born in Eritrea and based in New York City. Working with installations, photography, research and extensive travels, his practice centers 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 naturalized 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.
Petros studied Art as a Fulbright Fellow at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Photography at Concordia University, Montreal and History at The University of Saskatchewan. Recent exhibition venues include The Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC; The National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, MI; The Prince Claus Fund Gallery in Amsterdam, NL; The Durban Art Gallery in Durban, SA; Medina Galerie Mediatheque in Bamako, Mali; The Royal Ontario Museum of Art in Toronto, ON and The Lianzhou International Photo Festival in Lianzhou, China. His works have been recognized with awards including an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, an Art Matters Fellowship, Canada Council for the Arts Production Grants, and Artist Residencies at The Studio Museum in Harlem, The McColl Center for Visual Art, Addis Ababa Photo Fest, and Invisible Borders TransAfrican Photography Collective. His works are in institutional collections including The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Royal Ontario Museum of Art, The Saskatchewan Arts Board and numerous private collections.
Dawit L. Petros is represented by Tiwani Contemporary in London, UK.
