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Surprise! We wanted to let you in on the next batch of artists-in-residence we'll be hosting in 2018! Meet them, follow them and support us and in turn, them by donating this year for Give Big Pittsburgh! Go to Give Big Pittsburgh all day Tuesday, November 28th to donate!
Eric Anthony Berdis is an artist and curator who works in performance and sculpture. Rooted in performance, (live, for the camera and projected), Berdis also incorporates painting, drawing and sewn construction to create costumes and props that serve dual roles that often are subverted when incorporated into their performances. The imagery and forms in Berdis’s work are not only influenced by their personal experiences but also by artists such as Mike Kelly, Leigh Bowery and Janine Antoni and cultural references like children's fairy tales, 90's club kid scene and AIDs culture.
Originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, they received their BFA from Slippery Rock University in 2013. In 2016 they completed a post-baccalaureate program in the Fibers & Material Studies department at Tyler. Since Tyler, Eric had a solo show at Syracuse University as well as completed the Post College Apprentice Program at the Fabric Workshop Museum. Interested in supporting DIY culture that bridges theory of Gender and Sexuality, they are currently the Zine Librarian of the artist collective and gallery Little Berlin located in the Kensington area of Philadelphia. 
Neck out Installation and performance, 2016
cargocollective.com/ericanthonyberdis @ericanthonyberdis 
Ben Yacavone’s work centers around the materials of the industrial world - materials that singularly hold little value, but together create the world that surrounds us. The materials are investigated in their most isolated forms, and used to create work that emphasizes the formal properties of each component material, and also calling the viewer to consider their own perception of the industrial world.
Ben is a visual artist living and working on Columbus, OH. He received a BA in Art and Education from Hartwick College in 2014, and his MFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in 2016 with a concentration in sculpture. Ben works primarily in sculpture, using industrial building materials to explore the relationships between material, formalism, and cultural perception of the industrial world. 
Meg Wolensky paints when she’s stressed out. Or when she’s in love. Meg’s work unveils personal truths in artworks based on experiences, memories, and dreams. She translates moments from various source material into investigative paintings and writings that layer cross-sections of personal narrative.
Originally from West Chester, Pennsylvania, Wolensky currently lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She obtained a BFA in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2014 and a Master of Science in Arts Administration from Drexel University in 2016, working for Mural Arts Philadelphia to make art accessible to incarcerated populations and individuals on high-risk probation. 
Damion Dreher was born and raised in the small city of Clairton Pennsylvania, heart of steel country, home of the Bears and the setting for the movie “The Deer Hunter”. Damion became interested in art at a young age but it was after a few college classes that he knew that he wanted to be an artist. Soon after this realization, Damion moved to Brooklyn to further pursue his career as an artist.
Damion’s newest work draws upon the underlying beauty of urban decay. I get inspired when I see things like weathered signs stuck on abandoned buildings, advertisements layered on subway platforms, and graffiti in dive bar bathrooms. With my artwork, I attempt to tell stories through fragmented visual clues. These stories and their subjects are rarely given in their entirety but offer viewers an incomplete narrative through which their own conclusions can be drawn. The layers, although torn, ripped and sometimes almost unintelligible, help to convey a message. That is a message of resilience, of defiance and sometimes, even a message of hope. 
Stephanie Kantor explores the paradoxical aspects of culture, both expansive and local through her work. Kantor makes large scale, sculptural ceramic pots and places them within created environments, transporting the viewer to an alternate reality. She utilizes ornamentation and decoration to create a facade of culture, where her objects speak to multiplicity, cultural diversity, and artifice.
Stephanie Kantor (b. 1985, Pittsburgh, PA, USA) lives and works in Denver, CO. She received her MFA in Ceramics from University of Colorado Boulder (2015) and BFA from Penn State University (2009). Kantor has shown nationally at Patterson Gallery (PA), Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (KS), Paragraph Gallery (MO), Belger Crane Yard Studios (MO), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (CO), and Sala Diaz (TX). 
Hannah Gaskill is interested in duality; ecstasy and misery, the self and the other, seriousness and absurdity, and the marriage of all of these things. Hannah aims to create simulations of past experiences, as well as visions of external perception: ghosts of what was there and the shells of what is left behind; the outward perception of a body that is femme versus inward interpretations of the self.
Through her work, she attempts to invoke a sense of discomfort and unintentional voyeurism through the manipulation of the human form, odd camera perspectives, and faint wrinkles. “I’m curious about works involving a state of active non-knowing. What I hope to do most through my work is to lay my experiences, memories, and vulnerabilities at your feet and give you the opportunity to try them on if you’re so inclined. I want you to see what you aren’t supposed to, in a way that is both hyper-serious and not serious at all.” Comments are closed.
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