Material Matters

Curated by Amanda Jirón-Murphy

Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington

June 27 - September 13, 2026

“Material Matters celebrates the fifty-year legacy of MoCA Arlington’s Artist Studio Program and its role as a launch pad for artists in the Washington, DC region and beyond. Bringing together select residency alumni whose studios at MoCA Arlington date back as early as the 1980s, the exhibition highlights the wide range of artistic practices that have emerged from the program. 

Since 1976, the museum’s Artist Studio Program has been a vibrant center for artistic experimentation in the Washington, DC region. Residency alumni have gone on to exhibit in prominent national and international institutions, participate in prestigious residencies, and contribute significantly to the cultural life of the metropolitan DC region and beyond through their work as educators and mentors to subsequent generations of artists.

Material Matters explores materiality in art-making, from the recent past to the present day. Working across installation, sculpture, painting, and mixed-media, the artists in Material Matters reflect the experimentation that has long defined MoCA Arlington’s studio residency program. Many of the artists in the exhibition underwent a significant shift in their artistic practice during their tenures as resident artists, as evidenced by the material explorations that are on display. 

The range of material practices presented in this selection of MoCA Arlington’s studio alumni chart artists’ responses to some of the defining historical, economic, and social events in the United States over the past fifty years. Feminist issues, political events, displacement, and environmental concerns are expressed through the materials and processes on view. The works in Material Matters delight in the “how” and “what” they are made of, lending themselves to an experience of close looking, engagement, and discovery.

Presented during a milestone moment for the organization, Material Matters celebrates both the history of the residency program and its continued role in supporting artists and strengthening the region’s creative community.”

Material Matters is organized by Amanda Jirón-Murphy, Curator and Residency Program Manager.

Material Matters includes work by Negar Ahkami, Shahla Arbabi, Roxana Geffen, Sarah Hardesty, Marissa Long, Danielle Mysliwiec, Ryan McCoy, Foon Sham, and Rachel Schmidt.

Material Matters is generously supported by an Anonymous Donor, the 15th Street Foundation, Pamela Doty, the Georges Family Foundation, Penne and Brian Nelson, and Marsha Semmel. Additional support is provided by Stefanie Fedor, Martha and David Foster, Marlene and Michael Harrison, and Holly Koons.

Roxana Geffen’s installation Cheap Thrills reenvisions thrifted and found objects into a large mis-en-scene. Geffen, a formally trained painter, started playing with collage and found objects during her residency at MoCA Arlington. Transitioning from painting to two dimensional collages, Geffen eventually took up weaving and sculpture, all of which inform this new large-scale work.

In Cheap Thrills, Geffen treats the gallery as her canvas and the thrifted objects as her subjects. This approach foregrounds Geffen's intuitive love of texture, color, and form. By manipulating and re-considering these thrifted subjects’ formal qualities, Geffen also tinkers with their original cultural contexts and class associations; sometimes she amplifies them, in other cases she erases them altogether. Through this formal exercise, Cheap Thrills breathes new life into Geffen’s thrifted pieces, introducing a variety of nostalgic, aesthetic, and historical dimensions.