Nazeer Sabree, 3:3 - My Body, Given., 2025, Oil paint, acrylic paint, oil pastel, and found fabric on linen canvas, 72"h x 48"w

Nazeer Sabree: The Event Phase
a solo exhibition
Curated by Ginger Rudolph
Extended on our 2nd floor through November 23rd

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Paradigm Gallery + Studio is pleased to present The Event Phase, a solo exhibition featuring the multidisciplinary practice of Nazeer Sabree and curated by writer and curator Ginger Rudolph. The Event Phase will be on view in the Paradigm Arts Building (12 N 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106) starting October 3rd until November 23, 2025.

From the curator:

In his second solo show, The Event Phase, Sabree approaches his practice as an act of libation — a pouring out of memory, gratitude, grief, and joy for the people and moments that have shaped him. The exhibition unfolds like a constellation of thresholds, each work opening into a chapter of family history, ancestral guidance, and the inner landscapes of Black life. The flow of the show forms a fragile timeline — charting the moments of ceremony, instants of pure ambivalences, and spaces where loss still breathes.

These works unmask his False Face series, in which audiences have come to expect Sabree cradling his subjects behind the social and political forces that sway their lives, shift their realities, and dictate how they are seen. In this body of work, however, the veil is lifted. Sabree unveils not only his subjects’ deeper emotions and the intricacies of their relationships, but also himself — including the shadow self, the parts we are taught to keep hidden. Rather than turning away, he moves toward them, confronting the unspoken histories and quiet wounds that live behind the mask.

Material itself becomes a language: oil pastels, with their child-like immediacy, call back to the act of filling in a coloring book, or the first time a crayon traced a loved one’s face. This simplicity is not naïve — it is radical in its tenderness, a return to a time before the world’s weight settled in. Glitter shimmers like the light of God breaking through, evoking visions from scripture: the bush that burns but is not consumed, the pillar of fire that leads through the wilderness, the first light cast over creation. These symbols tie the work to a larger cosmology in which liberation is not only survival, but healing — a kind of exodus from within.

Each portrait becomes an intimate exchange — the curve of a lip, the texture of skin, the gravity of a gaze — but also a vessel for resurrection. “Painting my family, I carry their histories, joys, and traumas into the work, sometimes as heavy as rage, sometimes as tender as love,” Sabree reflects. “The process is both ceremony and battle — guided by something greater than myself — and each piece feels like a temporary resurrection before it leaves the studio.”

No longer mediated by headlines or filtered through reductive narratives about Black lives, these paintings reveal what is felt, remembered, and reconciled beyond public perception. They hold the contradictions of living — grief and delight, struggle and tenderness, endings and beginnings — and offer them to the viewer as both mirror and invitation.

PRESS
WhiteHot Magazine
Document Journal
Black Hippie Art
ArtsXhibit
Broad Street Review

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SECOND FLOOR

About Nazeer Sabree

Nazeer Sabree (b. 1998) is a visual artist from Philadelphia, focusing on depicting the dichotomy of everyday life in Black culture through monumental and intimate portraits. As a self-taught artist, he adds textiles, family photographs, and other everyday items within his oil paintings to connect his solitary figures to his environment. Sabree’s exploration of mental health—particularly his lived experiences with depression and anxiety—anchors his practice in emotional honesty. His work confronts vulnerability as both subject and method, offering a space where introspection and healing coexist. Through this approach, Sabree establishes a dialogue between selfhood and society, transforming individual struggle into collective empathy.

Nazeer Sabree's artwork is in the permanent collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the West Collection, and the Forman Family Collection, among many other private and public collections. Recent residencies and awards include Monument Lab Artist Residency Program (2025), Fitler Club Artists in Residence Program (2023), and Mural Arts Fellowship for Black Artists (2020). His public commissioned projects include partnerships with the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2024), Mural Arts (2025), Philadelphia International Airport (2025), and Living Walls/Adult Swim (2022). He has been profiled by reporters ranging from RJ Rushmore to Peter Crimmins, and is a 2025 Honoree of Smith Memorial Playground alongside a history of fellow honorees ranging from Quinta Brunson to William Still. He is represented by Paradigm Gallery + Studio. 

About Ginger Rudolph
Ginger is an independent curator and arts consultant, serving as a vital link between artists, institutions, and the public. She leads the Mural Arts Fellowship for Black Artists and is a board member of The Rail Park, a historic railway transformed into a linear park that enhances Philadelphia's health, culture, and ecology. As the founder of HAHA Magazine (High on Art, Heavy on Antics), Ginger has committed her career to engaging audiences with the global arts landscape through insightful and accessible education. Building on this foundation, she co-founded HAHAxParadigm, a Philadelphia-based arts initiative that partners with artists, creatives, and brands to deliver impactful public art experiences that inspire and connect communities. She received her B.A. from Tyler School of Art + Architecture in Art History.

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.

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

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