Past Exhibitions and Digital Catalogues
As Long As I Have Breath in My Body
April 6 - July 20, 2025
IN PROCESS… is an African American women's acapella ensemble from the Washington metropolitan area. The membership of IN PROCESS… and The Village of African American Doll Artists consists, in large part, of individuals born in Washington, DC in the 1940s and 1950s. They descend from Black migrants who arrived in Washington, DC during the Great Migration. Their forbearers laid the foundation for the African Americans communities that have thrived for decades. During the Great Maafa (the Middle Passage), millions of African artisans were transported to the Americas from regions where dolls, puppets, masks, and textiles were integral to cultural and religious ceremonies. African American doll and puppet making are among the oldest continuous art forms that enslaved Africans brought into the Americas.
All images courtesy of Camila Bryce La-Porte
The doll and puppet artists are storytellers who use mixed media to chronicle their communities’ history, identity, and culture. Like IN PROCESS…, the doll and puppet artists recognize that their works are healing and transformative for themselves and for the communities they represent. The exhibition will include videotaped conversations with the artists about their personal histories, the communities from which they emerged, their creative processes, and their works’ transformative and spiritual power. Dolls in a variety of textiles and mixed media will be on display to accompany the story and history of these artists.
Community Gallery
Music of Passion by Ahmed Alkarkhi
May 19 – June 15, 2025
The show explores how emotions permeate every aspect of our lives, being intertwined with memory, attention, perception, and decision-making and forming the backdrop to every form of art and literature. The theme “Spaces of Emotions” highlights the importance of emotions in personal relationships and in broader social life, the main places where emotions manifest themselves: among family, friends, and public spaces. Art is not just works of art; it is the soul that knows beauty, that carries music in its soul and the color of the sunset in its handkerchief, that can dance in a blazing world and make the world dance too.
Visual Verse: Recent works by Sara Caporaletti
June 16 – July 18, 2025
Visual Verse is a collection of new works from the past few years, exploring aspects of identity, the human body and moments of ordinary life. Sara Caporaletti is a mixed media artist that chooses materials in connection to ideas. Much of her work references her own physical, emotional, and spiritual health as abstract ways to process and understand the myriad experiences. This exhibition will highlight hand stitched textiles, small sculpture and digital photography that will be paired with poetry. This exhibit will be on view until July 18, 2025.
About the Artist:
Sara Caporaletti is a mixed media artist who received her BA in studio art from McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and her MFA in interdisciplinary fine art from American University in Washington DC. She has participated in several artist residency programs and actively exhibits her artwork in group exhibitions in art centers or galleries around the DMV and Mid-Atlantic region. She is a member of the Montgomery Art Association and Women's Caucus for Art, DC chapter. Since 2017, Sara has been on staff at Sandy Spring Museum, working as an Exhibit intern, Archives assistant, Exhibit Coordinator, and most recently as the Director of Operations.
Great Truths without Division: Chinese Garden Culture in Contemporary Art
July 27 – September 21, 2025
Great Truths Without Division: Chinese Garden Culture in Contemporary Art explores how contemporary artists reinterpret traditional East Asian Garden aesthetics to reflect themes of transformation, spirituality, and cultural exchange. Rooted in the philosophies of Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, the exhibition reflects on the interconnectedness of all life forms and the shared future of humanity.
Featuring works by 32 contemporary artists, including faculty and students from the Academy of Fine Arts at Minzu University of China, the exhibition blends traditional values with modern artistic approaches. The artworks— ranging from painting and sculpture to installation and digital media—draw inspiration from classical garden design and philosophy while reimagining them through modern global and digital lenses.
This multicultural exhibition illustrates how ancient wisdom can find new expressions in contemporary art, offering fresh perspectives on unity, ecology, and human experience. It emphasizes cultural diversity and invites public reflection on how tradition and innovation can coexist.
By bridging East and West, and past and present, the exhibition fosters meaningful dialogue and strengthens connections between communities in China, Sandy Spring and elsewhere.
Outdoor Public Art: Invisible Paradise
July 27 – September 21, 2025
This summer, experience a 9-foot-tall interactive installation on the museum grounds! Blending sight, sound, touch, and scent, the artwork (artist: Hui Han) invites visitors into a playful moment of harmony between humans and nature. Bring the little ones—come play with the panda!
Han Hui is a Chinese trendsetting IP (Intellectual Property) artist. He creates an atmosphere inspired by Zen philosophy, leading participants on a journey of self-discovery and the enhancement of life's value.
Community Gallery
Nature Redefined by Beth Higgins
March 19 - April 13, 2025
Opening Reception, March 23, 12-2 pm
Beth Higgins is a mixed-media artist who is deeply inspired by the intricate beauty of nature’s cycles and the interplay between organic forms and consumer remnants. This show is a celebration of the resilience of nature and the potential for renewal in discarded materials. Using a fusion of diverse materials, like upcycled wires, embossed aluminum cans, and other collected items to create textured, layered canvases. This collection, Nature Redefined, is a way to create organic pieces with inorganic material. Each piece is an exploration to find ways of finding beauty in the waste we create every day, while inspiring viewers to be mindful of their consumption.
Testimony
James Brown Jr
Marcel Taylor
January 15- March 30, 2025
A testimony does not merely share or relate events and circumstances. Rather, it is an oath, resting on a relationship with an authority higher than humankind, however one defines that power. It asks the witness to trust the one who shares it as evidence of matters that may not have been witnessed or experienced by others. It affirms and supports those who have undergone similar experiences. Essentially, it says, “You can believe me. I have seen, or experienced, or learned of this this myself.” It is a declaration that “I know of what I speak.”
Black Artists of DC, an organization dedicated to promoting the cultural heritage and contemporary practices of artists of African descent, will showcase a transgenerational selection of its widely acclaimed membership. Artists Anne Bouie, James Brown, Jr., Sheila Crider, Francine Haskins, Sarah Matthews, Terence Nicholson, Marcel Taylor, and Jessica Valoris will present a breadth of work covering textile, painting, 3D sculptures, relief printing, mixed media and found objects, felting, and more. The artists address the range of African American history from family lineage and community history to social commentary and activism for the contemporary world.
Jessica Valoris
Anne Bouie
Community Gallery
The Materiality of Collage by Barbara Ziselberger
November 20- December 20, 2024
The Materiality of Collage is an exploration of the physical and symbolic possibilities within the art of collage. Barbara Ziselberger brings together her passion for mark-making and found materials with her fascination for hand papermaking and love of collage. This project delves into the material aspects of line, texture, and surface, emphasizing the creation of artist-made collage elements, with a focus on handmade paper. Barbara Ziselberger is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County Government and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County.
Community Gallery
Nature Inspired: Denise Marie Brown & Delia Mychajluk
October 17 – November 18, 2024
Denise Marie has been painting for over 50 years. She has her BFA from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. Denise paints in oils using photographic images she has taken. She paints nature, landscapes, skyscapes, seascapes and still life in oils using dramatic color and contrast. Denise was president of the Hyattsville Community Arts Association from 2011 to 2021. She continues to curate the exhibits by HCAA. Denise exhibits her work in HCAA exhibitions, and local exhibits and has a gallery in her home in Bladensburg where she hosts open house exhibitions.
Delia Mychajluk was born in Washington, DC and received a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in 1986 and has an MSN (1977) and BSN (1975) in nursing, and psychiatric-mental health nursing from Catholic University of America. Delia has a studio in Riverdale, MD where she creates along with 9 other artists. She has been a resident of Prince George’s County for the past 50 years and has been exhibiting regularly in the county and DMV region. She is a current member of the Women’s Caucus for the Arts and active with their Eco Group.
Both artists are displaying different ways of interacting with nature, from a distance taking in the whole landscape to an intimate, up-close encounter with leaves, petals and branches. Denise encourages you to be in the moment, experience the energy, the peace, the joy. For Delia, the natural world is a visual manifestation of Divine Creation. A place of wonder, sacred place, and healing with the drama of color, weather, life and death.
ARTINA 2024: A Point of View
September 18 – November 10, 2024
ARTINA is an annual outdoor sculpture exhibition on the grounds created in partnership with the Washington Sculptors Group. ARTINA 2024: A Point of View will invite artists to explore point of view as a concept or technique for sculpting illusion, presenting a view of reality, commenting on the fallibility of perception, offering multiple viewpoints of a concept, providing a historical perspective on a topic of choice, or any other way that best presents a point of view. The exhibit juror is Nehemiah Dixon, III.
Community Gallery
Monday Painters: First Look by Margo Lehman & Lori Myers
August 15 - October 16, 2024
Every Monday Margo Lehman and Lori Myers paint together. What you see here is a collection of their output from Mondays spent in the studio. In addition to being friends and painters, both are members of the Olney Art Association.
Margo is a lifelong Quaker and native of Sandy Spring. Her medium is usually traditional oil paint, but sometimes she takes a foray into the fiber arts, painting with wool and other fibers using traditional and modern techniques. Her images of the natural world are a testimony to their inherent beauty and a call for the preservation of the earth. Margo also explores her own spiritual journey through the interplay of darkness and light.
Lori grew up in northern Montgomery County on a dirt farm road named after her mom’s parents. She reflects on childhood memories exploring woods, creeks, and more in her landscapes. Her work reflects both a love of the countryside and a reaction to the suburbanization of the land she has known for half a century.
50 Years in Olney: Olney Art Association
August 4 - November 17, 2024
Olney Art Association's 50th Anniversary Juried Exhibition brings together a diverse group of artists whose work depicts the quiet beauty and history of our corner of Montgomery County. View watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings, including still lifes, portraits, landscapes, and abstracts, alongside collages, sculptures, and photography.
Community Gallery
Observing the Garden: paintings by Erin Raedeke
July 1- August 12, 2024
"Observation has always been the driving force behind my work. Whether it is a still life set up in my studio, studying my reflection in the mirror, or being immersed in the landscape, observing plays the main role. While I’m interested in creating an accurate image of the motif before me, recording the feeling and experience I have of the subject is just as important.
This exhibit is an exploration of the summer garden, both the fruits of what it produces, and its physical space. A recent visit to a close friend’s garden, a memory of my West Virginia garden from years ago, or perennials brought into the studio to study and paint, observing the garden becomes a springboard for reflection.”
A Paean to Paper
April 28- July 24, 2024
A Paean to Paper will explore the history of paper and its many uses. Twelve artists will display paper-based artworks that connect to cultural traditions, recycling, upcycling, and other diverse ways of manipulating paper as material.
Participating artists include Maria Barbosa, Deborah Coolidge, Limor Dekel, Juliet Hossain, Cookie Kerxton, Taina Litwak, Sonya Michel, Sookkyung Park, Ian Parsons, Jane Rostov, Holly Stone, and Frances Vye Wilson.
Community Gallery
Beyond the Canvas: Ahmed Alkarkhi
April 15- June 15, 2024
Art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows beauty that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its handkerchief that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance too.
“I don't have one favorite place, but I love anywhere that I can be near water - to see it flowing meditatively and hear its music. Being near water is my place of peace and calm.” - Ahmed Alkarkhi
Dreams of Earth Renewal: Neha Misra
January 7 – April 14, 2024
Dreams of Earth Renewal highlights the role of immigrant art and cultural heritage in healing people and the planet. The exhibition showcases Misra’s original contemporary eco-folk art mix media paintings, eco-poems, and two site-specific public art installations – an indoor Earth mandala and an outdoor sacred tree grove installed on the museum grounds. This exhibition is the debut solo showcase of the artist’s vibrantly inspiring art.
First generation immigrant Neha Misra नेहा मिश्रा is a Montgomery County, Maryland-based contemporary eco-folk visual artist, poet, and award-winning climate justice advocate. Misra’s Mother Earth, wisdom-centered, interdisciplinary studio uses the transformative power of art to build bridges between private, collective, and planetary healing.
Glass Art & Paintings Reflecting the Liquidity of Both Media: Amie Hoeber
March 5 - April 5, 2024
A collection of hand-blown glass and acrylic paintings on linen by local artist, Amie Hoeber will be on view in our Community Gallery, located off the exhibition hall near the Museum front doors. Amie’s paintings and glass works highlight the movement and fluid qualities of both media.
Our Creative Community
September 22 – November 15, 2023
A juried exhibition showcasing the diverse talents of over forty Maryland-based artists. The juror, Roberta (Bobbie) Staat, is an artist, educator, and arts enthusiast. Ms. Staat is a nationally-known, award-winning plein air artist.
ARTINA is an annual outdoor sculpture exhibition on the grounds created in partnership with the Washington Sculptors Group. Artists display works outdoors that are based on a particular theme and selected by a local juror.
Shanye Huang – Regeneration – Connection – Celebration
June- September, 2023
Maryland-based Shanye Huang was born and raised in an ethnic Zhuang family in Guangxi, Southwest China, a region known for its vibrant folk arts. His art connects his southern Chinese folkloric heritage with the disciplined skills of Chinese academic painting and Western contemporary concepts. He uses simple craft material such as paper cutting with contemporary conceptual expressions to create large-scale vibrant installations that are filled with symbols and metaphors to facilitate meaningful conversions.
Magic Moments
January 15, 2024
A collection of plein air paintings and studio drawings by local painter Roberta (Bobbie) Staat. Staat’s paintings show locations from her travels both near and far as she captures everyday moments in oil paints and pastels.