Previous Exhibitions

Prisms 2016

September 10 - October 2, 2016

Celebrate the artistic achievements of MOCA’s art campers at the Prisms 2016 art exhibition on view in the Fleming Gallery. Art Campers, their families, friends, and teachers are invited to share in the excitement at the closing reception, Sunday October 2 from 2-4pm. Artwork can be taken home at the close of the reception. This reception will coincide with a Free Family Fest and will feature children’s art activities, scavenger hunts, and refreshments. …

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Prisms 2016

Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête

May 12 - August 13, 2017

In this exhibition, renowned artist Mickalene Thomas explores the photographic image as a touchstone for her practice. Her famous paintings of domestic interiors and portraits are large-scale, multi-textured and rhinestone-encrusted. With each series, she grapples with and asserts new definitions of beauty and inspiration. This collection of photographic portraits and staged scenes reflect a personal community of inspiration. Her collection of muses includes herself, her mother, her friends and lovers. They emphasize the communal and social aspects of art-making and creativity that pervade her work. The exhibition will include elements from each area of Thomas’s photographic practice. …

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Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête

Mickalene Thomas, Racquel Leaned Back, 2013. © Mickalene Thomas. Courtesy the artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong; and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Jamie Betts: Left Behind

January 28 - April 16, 2017

Jamie Betts is a Fine Art, Commercial and Editorial photographer based in Richmond, Virginia. For the past ten years, Betts has documented abandoned places found across Virginia and beyond. Like stepping into a time capsule, these photographs tell the stories of their past inhabitants. Peeling wallpaper, crumbling brickwork and personal artifacts reveal traces of human presence and the inevitable effect of time. Derelict hospitals, farmhouses, barns, churches and other forgotten places appear to decay and crack before our eyes. Nature slowly begins to invade them as moss, stalactites and vegetation take hold. ARTIST TALK with Jamie Betts on Thu, Mar 16 These exhibitions are supported in…

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Jamie Betts. Reclamation. Abandoned Home Rural VA, 2015. Giclee watercolor print on gatorfoam. Courtesy of the Artist

The Artists Gallery: Call and Response

August 5, 2016 - January 10, 2017

In this exhibition, MOCA invited artists from the cooperative, The Artists Gallery in Virginia Beach, to respond to MOCA’s ground-breaking exhibition, Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose. The artists who responded spent some exclusive time with the exhibition and talked with the curators who organized it. From there, they created an original artwork as a response to the exhibition. This artist may have cited influence from a specific work or many pieces from the exhibition. Celebrate the results created by local artists through an exhibition hung in MOCA’s Satellite Gallery at Towne Pavilion II. This exhibition is organized by The Virginia Museum of Contemporary …

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Constance Fahey. No Surfing Today, 2016. Acrylic and mixed media

ARTlab Summer/Fall 2016

May 22 - December 31, 2016

Explore the new exhibitions hands-on in ARTlab! The Butler Gallery (ARTlab) is a space for all ages to discover current exhibiting artists and their processes through interactive activities, fun facts, art making stations and reading materials provided by the Virginia Beach Public Library. …

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