Dovetail Projects presents All Legacies, its debut exhibition and book release at Atelier Gallery in Brewerytown

Jaither West populates his filled-to-the-borders canvases with martial artists, hip-hop and R&B singers and break-dancers like himself. Eric Stewart paints from photographs he’s taken of his Hunting Park neighborhood—a basketball court, a post office, a cheese steak store—capturing subtle expressions of mood and relationship.

According to the organizers, this show depicts well–recognized icons like The Jackson 5 and characters from Star Trek, but also family members, as the artists explore public versus private histories, and create visual spaces that span time and place.

A place to foster kinship

The pop-up exhibit coincides with both artists’ book releases published by This Must Be the Place Press, a Philly-based independent publisher. This Must Be the Place began in 2020 as a more substantial and enduring outlet for artists than zines or smaller publications. It highlights works such as full-color reproductions, artist interviews, and essays by neurodivergent artists.

Samantha Mitchell and Virginia Fleming co-founded the publishing project, which “fosters kinship between and makes space for neurodivergent artists,” their website states. Mitchell worked for 14 years at the Center for Creative Works (CCW), a progressive art studio centered on the representation and professional development of neurodivergent artists.

“I was really wanting to work with artists to make longer, full-color publications that would provide a way for them to contextualize their work while sharing it,” Mitchell says.

The pair created Dovetail Projects in 2026 to “champion work through a more inclusive setting,” she explains. Their goal is to unite working artists and artists with disabilities. It is still a work in progress.

Mitchell wants Dovetail—operated by artists, educators and cultural workers—to provide accessible studio space, inclusive programming, residencies, and community partnerships.

“We’re also looking for a physical space to be able to have exhibitions and to have work for sale,” she added.

Alive, communicative, and expressive

Together, West’s and Stewart’s work feels like conversation between two painters who explore personal images, imagination and public space—Stewart’s tableau of an adult and child at a breakfast table crammed with coffee cups and Deer Park water bottles; West’s 2021 mural at the Philadelphia International Airport, which shows break-dancers tumbling through different parts of the airport.

“[West’s] work is alive and full of movement and expression,” Mitchell says, adding that in Stewart’s paintings, “You can tell [Stewart is] thinking about the way spaces make him feel.”

Through Dovetail Projects, Mitchell hopes to challenge and expand the term “outsider art”, often used to describe self-taught creatives or those with physical or cognitive disabilities. Mitchell says the term conveys a sense that such artists stand outside the artistic conversation.

“[West and Stewart] have so much to communicate with the contemporary figurative movement,” she says.

That is also true in their books. West’s I Want to Go Back in Their Time is a full-length monograph with full-color plates of his paintings and an interview with the artist. Stewart’s book, The History of Ol’ Skool Rappers, combines portraits and short biographies.

“I continue to be really inspired by the artists who work out of CCW,” Mitchell adds. “Their work is interesting and inventive and deserves more of a platform.”

Thanks for reading BSR! If you value arts journalism, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss our next preview, and share us with your friends. There’s never a paywall at BSR.