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Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Amber N. Ford Someone, Somewhere, Something Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Amber N. Ford, Balloon Release for Bogard , 2021, digital photograph. Courtesy the artist Best known for photography, artist Amber N. Ford delves into the medium of sound as a tool to share intimate stories of grief. During her Winter/Spring 2022 residency at moCa, Ford used moCa’s space as a site to collect responses from audiences about their experiences of loss and trauma. Someone, Somewhere, Something applies this content in a new audio work presented in various unconventional sites throughout the museum to create poignant sound collages that make space for mourning while also supporting catharsis and healing. Lead support for Amber N. Ford: Someone, Somewhere, Something is provided by Margaret Cohen & Kevin Rahilly. Additional support provided by The Callahan Foundation. About the Artist Amber N. Ford Amber N. Ford Amber N. Ford (b. 1994, Cleveland, OH) is an artist based in Cleveland, OH. She received her BFA in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2016). Interested in race, and identity, she is best known for her work in portraiture, which she considers a “collaborative engagement between photographer and sitter.” She has been featured in exhibitions at Kent State University, Transformer Station, SPACES Gallery, The Morgan Conservatory, The Cleveland Print Room, Zygote Press, and Waterloo Arts, as well as in outdoor public spaces on the Capitol Theatre Building located at the corner of Detroit and West 65th. In 2021, her work was on view at ThirdSpace Action Lab as a part of Imagine Otherwise . Recent awards include Gordon Square Arts District Artist-In-Residence (2019) and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2017).

Title Round Derek Hess Pop Defect, Alcohol Funnycar... , 1994 Serigraph, ed. 68/120 Framed: 27 x 20 inches Estimated Value Range: $400 - $800 Starting Bid: $200 Bidding increments: $50 Gift of Margo Roth. More: Derek Hess Born in Cleveland in 1964, Hess’ ascendance in the arts should probably come as little surprise. His father, Roy Hess, was a noteworthy designer, and chairman of the lauded industrial design department at the Cleveland Institute of Art. From a young age, Hess was correctly trained in classical art and design. Hess studied at that school, and at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, but he never landed in his father’s department, trying out illustration and graphic design before settling on a major in printmaking. It was that discipline, combined with his love of music, that led Hess to poster art fame. He had begun booking post-hardcore and underground rock concerts at the Euclid Tavern, a divey blues bar across the street from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and he drew his own fliers to promote his shows.

Title Round Jessica Mein obra trinta e um , 2013 Collage 41 x 34 inches Estimated Value Range: $3,000 - $4,500 Starting Bid: $1,500 Bidding increments: $250 Jessica Mein (b. 1975, São Paulo, Brazil) is a Brazilian artist whose work spans across drawing, animation, and physical investigations of discarded billboards, often from her hometown of São Paulo, and hand-printed hemp bags from Dubai. Her art challenges traditional boundaries between image, surface, and structure, frequently questioning the very materials that support her creations. More: Jessica Mein Artistic Practice Mein’s work is deeply rooted in labor and construction, which is reflected in her use of the Portuguese word obra (meaning both "work of art" and "construction site") to describe her practice. She often repurposes images from obsolete billboards, especially in the context of São Paulo’s ban on outdoor advertisements, where the works subvert censorship by recycling these materials for new purposes. Mein’s process includes unthreading, puncturing, and unraveling canvas and fabric, reminiscent of the work of Lucio Fontana, to reveal the raw, structural elements behind the image. This deconstruction reveals the object's physicality, turning the artwork into both a finished product and a site of ongoing creation. Mein also engages with the notion of tramas —a Portuguese word signifying both tapestry and entanglement —which relates to her intricate manipulation of materials. In her series Obra Quarenta e Quatro , the artist explores systems of production through obsolete billboard fragments transferred to hemp, a slow and labor-intensive process. Through her unthreading, cutting, and imprinting processes, Mein creates abstract compositions that juxtapose the image and its material base, emphasizing the relationship between surface and structure. Notable Works and Exhibitions Mein has exhibited widely in solo and group shows across the world, with notable exhibitions at El Museo del Barrio (New York), Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), The Julia Stoschek Foundation (Düsseldorf), and the Drawing Center (New York). Her solo exhibitions include Obras at Simon Preston Gallery (New York) and Tramas at Galeria Leme (São Paulo), where she presented new wall-based works and large-scale spatial structures that further explore the boundaries between image and support. About the Artist Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Mein’s work investigates the intersection of physicality, urban spaces, and the rapidly disappearing materials of the past. Drawing inspiration from the outdated billboard structures of São Paulo and the hand-printed hemp bags found in Dubai, Mein focuses on the obsolescence of visual culture and the labor-intensive production of images. Her artistic investigations emphasize the tension between the rapidly changing world of digital imagery and the slow, deliberate handcraft of her own work. Currently residing in Dubai, Mein is a resident artist in the A.i.R. program run by Art Dubai, Delfina Foundation, and Tashkeel. Selected Collections The Museum of Modern Art, New York Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf Museu de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo

Jun 27, 2025-Jan 4, 2026 Erykah Townsend "Happy" Holidays Jun 27, 2025-Jan 4, 2026 Erykah Townsend, Memorials , 2025 (detail). Vintage handmade and manufactured ornaments collection, wire, 32 x 37 In (81.28 x 93.98 cm). Courtesy of the artist. “Happy” Holidays , the first solo museum exhibition of multimedia artist Erykah Townsend, explores how consumerism shapes Christmas. Rather than a joyous time, this season can create high expectations and financial stress, especially for those with limited means. Townsend blends humor with earnest reflection to examine Western commercialism and how shopping and spending have consumed Christmas. Drawing on, art history, pop culture, allegory, and advertising, Townsend satirizes and critiques the holiday “one-upmanship” that happens during this time. This focused study extends Townsend’s ongoing exploration of commercialism’s influence on our lives. As she states, “I use pop culture as a medium itself - exploring the spaces it fills in our lives and questioning how real is the imaginary." Townsend began developing “Happy” Holidays during her 2022 moCa residency. She received her BFA in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2020. moCa AIR is supported by Margaret Cohen & Kevin Rahilly. “Happy” Holidays is supported by The Satellite Fund, administered by SPACES and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program. About the Artist Erykah Townsend Erykah Townsend , also known as E.T., is a conceptual artist from Cleveland, Ohio. Her art boldly confronts and questions the role of pop culture in our lives. She states, “I use pop culture as a medium itself—exploring the spaces it fills in our lives and the inquiry of how real are the imaginary." Through reflective and humorous narratives, Townsend references art history and critiques consumerism and western culture, using characters, cultural icons, and objects as allegories for her criticism. In addition, her work includes elements from their original sources, providing the audience with a fresh and sentimental encounter. Townsend received her BFA in painting from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2020.

Date Title One sentence desciption + more Add a Title Add a Title Title + more Add a Title Add a Title Title + more Sun. December 28, 2025 Sensory Sundays 12-2:30PM at moCa Cleveland Free to all SIGN UP The last Sunday of the month at moCa. Sensory Sundays are designed for neurodiverse visitors and their families. Each session includes a touch table, sound and texture experiences, and audio descriptions of select artworks. Hosted in the Rayburn Practice Lab, these mornings create a calm, engaging environment for multi-sensory learning. Supported by

AIR: Joyce Morrow Jones AIR: Joyce Morrow Jones Artist-in-residence Jul 1-Nov 30, 2021 Left: Joyce Morrow Jones; Right: Joyce Morrow Jones, Strength of the Ancestral Realm (Part of Ancestors are Our Strength triptych) , 2018. Mixed media relief covered with African Ankara fabric collage, 16 x 30 in. (40.64 x 76.2 cm). Courtesy the artist Joyce Morrow Jones is a mixed media fiber and sculpture artist weaving the art of storytelling through her creations. Her work is inspired by transformational stories of women in their journey through life, history, and cultural traditions. African and Diaspora themes reflecting cultural traditions often with multicultural images are also prominent in her artwork. Born in Cleveland, Joyce acknowledges her Jamaican and African heritage. Those influences will continue throughout her residency with moCa as she expands “Ancestral Tributes” in both oral tradition of storytelling and creative expression. Select exhibitions include shows at BayArts in Bay Village, OH; Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH; and the Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH. She was a 2019 Artist-in-Residence at Karamu House. Find out more about Joyce Morrow Jones at joycemorrowjones.com The AIR program is generously sponsored by Margaret Cohen and Kevin Rahilly, with additional support from Char and Chuck Fowler. About moCa AIR: Developed to support and highlight the work of emerging or early-career artists in Cuyahoga County, moCa AIR allows the museum to work alongside artists through 5-month, long-form onsite engagements. Artists-in-residence receive an honorarium, program support, a dedicated studio space inside the museum, professional development opportunities, access to the museum’s production studios, and administrative support. During their time in residence, each artist will develop a site-specific project that activates a site in the building outside of the traditional gallery spaces with production funds provided by moCa. Related Exhibition ▶ Joyce Morrow Jones: Black Butterfly

Title Round Simone Shubuck Ottoman , 2006 Lithograph, edition of 40 Framed: 19 3/4 x 15 1/2 inches Estimated Value Range: $500 - $800 Starting Bid: $200 Bidding increments: $50 More: Simone Shubuck Born in 1969, Simone Shubuck received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has had a solo exhibition with Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL) in New York and has exhibited works in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and San Francisco. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Tokion, Elle, The Fader, ARTnews and is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Shubuck’s work is informed by a range of experiences, from her days as a graffiti artist in San Francisco in the early 90’s to her years as a flower designer in New York City. She professes an affinity for Viennese Secessionists and Art Nouveau practices as well as the work of such outsider artists as Edmund Monsieul and Lee Godie. Her visual style parallels her obsession with the layered sampling of hip-hop artists like Jay-Z, Dipset, Cam’ron and Young Jeezy. Another notable influence comes from her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, who were skilled bakers and embroiderers.

Title Round Angela Dufresne Saratoga Moon , 2013 Oil on canvas 44 x 61 x 2 inches Estimated Value Range: $5,000 - $8,000 Starting Bid: $2,000 Bidding increments: $250 Despite its dark composition, there is much at play in this dramatic painting. A cast of characters in the foreground–hinted at through gestures of bright color–suggest various tales that might occur under the moonlight. Angela Dufresne is a Brooklyn-based painter whose vivid, narrative works fuse expressive abstraction with allegorical storytelling, often delivered through an unapologetically queer and feminist lens. Her flamboyant canvases explore themes of desire, identity, and transformation, populating chaotic, dreamlike spaces with hybrid beings, film stars, and mythological figures. With a fearless mix of humor, theatricality, and sensuality, Dufresne creates expansive painterly worlds that challenge dominant historical and cinematic narratives. Dufresne’s 2021 solo exhibition, Long and Short Shots , was held at Vielmetter Los Angeles. Writing for Artforum , critic Colin Edgington described it as “a vision of a soft but salacious utopia full of unabashed living and endless love… Her phantasmagoric imagery calls to mind dreams, memories, and hallucinations. And like these psychic phenomena, her work feels as if it is forever undefinable, transitional—that is, utterly free.” More: Angela Dufresne Artist Statement "My work exists in frenzied, psychologically charged spaces of conflict and resolution, inspired by a bygone era of Hollywood glamour and heightened drama. More closely aligned with a tradition of cinema than painting, space in my compositions is constantly in motion. My figures exist in a dreamlike realm between the silver screen and the more enigmatic off-screen sites of unbridled imagination and risk-laden adventures. Desire is central—to be wanted, recognized, taken. My uninhibited use of color, gestural brushstrokes, and layers of painted imagery hints at an internal pathos in each painting, laying fertile ground for operatic drama, queer imagining, and a radical undoing of familiar narratives. Many of my works reference canonical history painting and cinema but often upend the heroic narratives that have dominated each genre. Bodies frolic in promiscuous and cross-species fraternity, populating a painterly realm that is part psychedelic dreamscape, part mythical neverland. I revisit iconic vignettes from classic cinema, inserting lesbian imagery, distorted starlet likenesses, and hybridized bodies to offer alternative readings—flipping dominant attitudes toward women and queerness and spinning liberated reimaginings of cultural, sexual, and social exchange." Biography Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1969, Angela Dufresne received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1998. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and residencies, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Siena Art Institute Residency, Yaddo, the Headlands Center for the Arts Residency, and the Jerome Foundation Fellowship. Dufresne’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA), the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, MO), and the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (SUNY New Paltz). Her paintings have also been featured in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Leslie-Lohman Museum, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, the RISD Museum, and the Rose Art Museum, among many others. Collections and Recognition Her work is held in numerous public and private collections and has been widely reviewed in national and international publications. Dufresne continues to push the boundaries of narrative painting, creating spaces where queerness, theatricality, and painterly pleasure collapse into one another with joyful, radical freedom.

Studio Access w/ Manabu Ikeda Apr 7, 2024 Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. About Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season.

Studio Access w/ Manabu Ikeda Mar 8, 2024 Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage About Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage Experience the artist create onsite at moCa as he develops a new monumental artwork over the course of the Winter/Spring season. Generous support for Manabu Ikeda's artist residency and programming by Flagstar Foundation. RELATED EXHIBITION: Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage

Title Round Thomas Frontini Untitled (Sailboat), 2019 Oil on panel 24 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches Estimated Value Range: $4,000 - $7,000 Starting Bid: $2,000 Bidding increments: $250 Many of Thomas Frontini’s allegorical images are set near the sea. In this exceptional work, the sailboat is the powerful subject, standing proud and strong as small elements play on the sand in the foreground. Frontini (b. 1967, Canada) creates paintings that resonate with anyone who cherishes the tranquil beauty of lake and boat life. His work blends the serenity of nature with dreamlike, fantastical imagery, capturing both the calm and mystery of the natural world. Using surrealist techniques—detailed foregrounds layered over atmospheric backdrops—Frontini constructs immersive scenes that juxtapose contemporary objects with historical references. His compositions explore the magic in the mundane and tap into the transformative power of the subconscious, creating metaphors for human experience and meditations on the tension between fantasy and reality. Influenced by his Italian heritage and a deep interest in art history, Frontini’s palette and technical approach reflect a cross-temporal dialogue that merges past and present. Towering landscapes stretch around intricately rendered flora and fauna; thick clouds and cliff faces house futuristic, miniature habitats. Abstract forms glow with light and distance, offering glimpses into imagined futures. The work feels both grounded and otherworldly—rooted in tradition but aimed toward speculative potential. Through careful symbolism and measured ambiguity, Frontini invites viewers into a world where the seen and unseen coexist, and where rituals, memories, and nature intertwine. More: Thomas Frontini Artist Statement "Fantasy and reality are always clashing in one's consciousness, particularly in dreams. Despite technological advances, humans will always rely primarily on basic instinct. My paintings depict the cyclical nature of life, the tendency for humankind to continually return to past tendencies. I often incorporate shrines as a subject in my work to comment on how societies evolve—moving away from insignificant rituals to more enlightened ideas—but in the end, the rituals continue. The shrines are not destroyed; they are simply transformed. Through these images, I attempt to portray the way that fantasy and reality coexist, often in the most unexpected and surreal forms." About the Artist Thomas Frontini received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He has exhibited widely across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at venues including the Richard Levy Gallery (Albuquerque, NM), William Busta Gallery (Cleveland, OH), and as part of the Venice Biennale satellite programming in Italy, coinciding with the release of his monograph. His work has also appeared in group exhibitions in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and Santa Fe. Frontini’s paintings are included in several prominent private and public collections, such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea, and the Cleveland Clinic Collection in Ohio. Selected Awards Sara Jane Pyne Materials Grant, Ohio State University (1992) Jurors Award, Chattahoochee Valley Arts Museum (1991) Award of Excellence, Ohio Watercolor Society (1990)

T.E.A.M. Info Session Aug 22, 2024 Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more! About Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more! Join in an info session to learn more about the T.E.A.M. paid internship for teens, find out more about art and culture career paths and teen opportunities offered at the museum, and discuss the importance of cultivating a support system for creative teens. About the T.E.A.M. Program: T.E.A.M. gives participants the tools to amplify their voice and provides opportunity for critical thinking, creative expression and leadership through the arts. For 7 months teens are immersed in workshops, field trips, guidance from moCa's staff, Cleveland artists, art professionals and more!