Sarah Detweiler, I Give Myself Grace Now, 2025, oil, embroidery, and found material on canvas

Sarah Detweiler: Unmasquerade
April 4 –  April 27, 2025

OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, April 4 • 6–8PM

Paradigm Gallery + Studio is pleased to present Unmasquerade, a solo exhibition of new work by painter Sarah Detweiler. Detweiler portrays motherhood with a childlike spirit using oil and embroidery, resulting in vibrant portraits that press into the corners of nostalgia and charm. For her third solo exhibition with Paradigm, she chose to visualize her recent experience of receiving an Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder diagnosis and how she’s adjusting with a new understanding. As if uncovering a hidden part of herself, Detweiler is able to establish a visual vocabulary highlighting her curiosity and perceptiveness as an artist, while also letting audiences in to her daily struggles as a human.  Instead of seeing her neurodivergence as an obstacle, she can release the expectations of appearing adjusted and “ordinary” in social settings. Audiences can bask in Detweiler’s revelry, as she parades in costumes that both cover her body and reveal her authentic self in her paintings. She uses mirror reflections, shadows, projections, and kaleidoscope motifs throughout the work as her instruments to celebrate how her brain works, overloading with information in a constantly shifting perspective. 

Detweiler has always been fascinated by the act of concealment in her work. In her earlier exhibitions, she painted cloaked figures as a nod to hidden mothers in Victorian photography. The theme continued to expand in her career to where her covered figures shed light on the societal expectations placed on women and the roles they are asked to fill. The side-effect of the double standard resulted in many young girls like Detweiler being overlooked for ADHD screenings and having access to resources to help with cognitive behavior struggles. To survive, Detweiler became a chameleon, teaching herself “masking” techniques to seem neurotypical, although inadvertently hiding parts of herself in social settings. After being officially diagnosed, the weight of unregulated emotions began to fade, and Detweiler was able to reconcile the years of misunderstanding herself through her artwork.  In Unmasquerade, Detweiler positively redefines the ADHD term of masking as a purposeful and playful act, as her figures wear novelty sunglasses, fur suits, mosaic cloaks in dreamy settings. In I Give Myself Grace Now,  Detweiler creates a self-portrait of her lying down in a field of laundry arranged in a spectrum, embellished with mirror fragments and embroidery radiating from her body. Detweiler uses laundry as a metaphorical device throughout the exhibition, representing the executive dysfunction many with ADHD face daily, but in this piece she indulges in a moment of bliss before she tackles the seemingly never-ending house chore. Detweiler explains, “I realized that despite the diagnosis,the metamorphosis that I came out of, I was still very much the same. I was not ‘healed’, ‘fixed’, or anything like that, but now I saw the beauty in the things that I used to shame myself for, and I've learned how to give myself grace.” Instead of seeing ADHD as a new identity, Detweiler is now been given the most profound understanding of her self to date. 

Detweiler’s aim in the exhibition is to give her audiences insight into how it feels to live neurodivergent using the language of kaleidoscope fragments. Information comes as refracted light, distorting her vision, and distracting as it shifts and reforms until new images arise. She chooses to celebrate the metamorphosis of chaos in a new portrait series on view for the first time. Spectrum of Curiosities, featuring herself and other unique individuals manifesting new personalities and emotions, refusing to be defined but existing poetically in a realm of new possibilities.

This exhibition is presented in part of our year-long 15th anniversary celebration, with additional programming looking forward to the future.

Please email info@paradigm-gallery.com if you wish to be added to Sarah Detweiler's digital collector preview list for her upcoming exhibition, or submit your request HERE.

About Sarah Detweiler
Sarah Detweiler is a Philadelphia area-based visual artist translating her experiences into figurative and narrative mixed media paintings. She has a BFA in Visual Communications from University of Delaware and a master's degree in Art Therapy from Pratt.

Sarah is an award-winning artist who has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in galleries across the country and virtually. She exhibits regularly at Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia where she has had 2 sold out solo exhibitions. Her work has also been seen on television and film, clothing, books, album covers, and projected onto a building in Times Square, NYC. Sarah has been published in Hi-Fructose, Create, Arts to Hearts, Visionary Art Collective, Artit, MILKED, and Uppercase Magazines, and featured on art blogs including Colossal and The Jealous Curator. She has also been interviewed for multiple art podcasts including The Jealous Curator’s podcast, Art For Your Ear. Detweiler’s imaginative work has been praised in multiple international publications, including recently in New American Paintings, juried by Amy Sherald.

Sarah works out of her home studio, undulating between her art practice and motherhood. She explores beyond the traditional boundaries of painting by including various hand embroidery techniques and mixed media materials into works based on themes of motherhood, nostalgia, and human connection.

About Paradigm Gallery + Studio
Paradigm Gallery + Studio® was established in 2010 by co-founders and curators, Jason Chen and Sara McCorriston. The gallery exhibits meaningful, process-intense contemporary artwork by emerging and mid-career artists from around the world, with a focus on Philadelphia. In 2023, Paradigm moved locations and opened its new 5-story, 7,000 sq. ft. home, The Paradigm Arts Building, in Old City, Philadelphia. Open to the public, the building boasts multiple floors of exhibition space, integrated in-house design and printmaking, a dedicated events floor, and art advisory offices. With this, Chen and McCorriston expanded their vision for the greater Philadelphia arts community. The gallery is at the heart of this vision, anchoring Paradigm’s overall mission of increasing access to the commercial art world, supporting artists and advancing their careers, and collaborating with like-minded partners to build a more equitable, sustainable arts economy for all.

Unmasquerade will be on view on the second floor of the Paradigm Arts Building (12 N 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106) starting April 4 through April 25, 2025.

EXHIBITION HOURS
Thursdays • 10 AM – 6 PM
Fridays • 10 AM – 6 PM
Saturdays • 11 AM – 6 PM
Sundays • 11 AM – 5 PM
And by appointment outside of hours.

MEDIA CONTACT
For all inquiries contact info@paradigm-gallery.com

LOCATION
12 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: @ParadigmGS
TikTok: ParadigmGallery
Facebook: facebook.com/paradigmgallery

Please email info@paradigm-gallery.com if you wish to be added to Sarah Detweiler's digital collector preview list for her upcoming exhibition, or submit your request HERE.