About the exhibition:

Cumulative Threads celebrates DVAA’s 2023 resident cohort! Join us from January 6-21 in Gallery 1 as we highlight the work our residents created during their month-long stay in our third floor studio space. Created to support underrepresented artists from a diverse range of backgrounds, ages, and experience levels, Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Residency serves to aid the development of their artistic practices at pivotal stages in their endeavors. Prior Reinhardt, Jihan A. Thomas, Lucy Shaiken, Lucy H. West, Sara Havekotte, Fina Grimes, em north, Jesse Arbor, JahBeverly, and Moses Kinney — all ten artists from of our 2023 residency cohort — create a dynamic exhibition through ten distinct, visually immersive lenses.

ABOUT THE ArtistS:

Jihan A. Thomas (she/her) is a Black, visual artist, artivist, mother and community and museum arts educator located in North Philadelphia. She incorporates her art and creativity in all aspects of her life. Jihan is passionate about challenging the spectrum of her artistry through mediums such as painting, drawing, printmaking, illustration, public art, and ceramics. Jihan has created art and cultural programming for local institutions throughout Philadelphia.

Sara Havekotte is an artist and arts professional working in Philadelphia, PA. Sara is trained broadly as a textile artist and works predominantly in quilting and weaving. Her work explores the intersection of textile history in relation to women’s experiences. Sara uses fiber material to create mid-scale wall works that loosely record her own lived experiences and then link them to broader concepts like history and time.

em north analyzes figurative depiction through large-scale immersive paintings and drawings on paper. In 2009, em learned to tattoo and began exploring the possibilities of drawing on human skin. Their artistic practice explores the multiplicities of identity as developed within internal and external representations of human form. Examining gender, class, and queerness via narrative storytelling is a consistent goal of Em’s artwork. She has worked in performative, digital, and printed media.

JahBeverly’s body of work centers black bodies adorned with humanity and elements that may not be of this world. Self-taught, Jah began painting as a means to express themselves and to connect with the world around them. Afrosurrealism is the provenance of their inspiration. A notion that seeks to cultivate alternative and expanded ways of knowing and being. Their work is an expression of black people being able to imagine themselves in the future in a more liberated and free way.

Lucy Shaiken (b.1994) is a self-taught artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Her paintings are all self-portraiture in some way, whether they are of herself, her surroundings, or her family. Each painting takes on the patina of her lived-in environment—the clutter, textures, warmth, and comfort of home. Lucy’s work has been exhibited in the US and Canada. In 2021, Lucy was awarded an Illuminate the Arts Grant by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture & The Creative Economy.

Lucy H. West is a Philadelphia-based artist originally from Tokyo, Japan. Her work portrays human consciousness and inner experiences shared by many of us – while also reflecting her own identity of being a biracial, binational, bilingual, spiritual, queer, food-loving, woman. West graduated from Dickinson College in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and a minor in Economics. West continuously strives to create personal connections and a community around positivity, love for self, and love for life through her art.

Fina Grimes “In my work I use my experiences caring for myself as a trans and disabled person to show the viewer depictions of self-love, reflection, and growth. The basis of my work is acknowledging and translating these past and present feelings through different modes of textile production. I allow the labor and material choices that go into my soft sculpture to be influenced by what I feel best conveys these emotions in the final product.”

Jesse Arbor Illustrator, comic artist, who found art from a need to externalize their reality and lived experiances. Using art to share themselves and connect with others.

Moses Kinney I would self define myself as a land artist, taking specific inspiration from other art makers throughout history who chose to engage the physical landscape of the earth by either removing its context and creating new setting or introducing objects to natural/unnatural areas. I began to explore what i like to call ‘environment creation’ with my thesis exhibition in 2019. In my method, I primarily focus on the suburban home, the house with a yard, fresh cut grass, dirt, and windows.

Prior Reinhardt’s work has been shown primarily in local galleries and juried exhibitions in the Philadelphia area. They are a member of the Plastic Club, the Arts Committee for the William Way LGBT Community Center, and most recently the Da Vinci Art Alliance. Reinhardt recently worked as Curatorial Assistant at the Pennsylvania Academy, where their research on the collection has been utilized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.