Artist Spotlight

View of the museum from outside showing the Neoclassical building from one corner. The building is a tan-colored stone with an arched doorway, long vertical windows, and detailed molding around the roof.
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5 Questions With Very Sad Lab
Posted: March 15, 2022
Category: Artist Spotlight
Throughout 2022, NMWA’s #5WomenArtists campaign will champion emerging and underrepresented artists. Get to know D.C.-based houseplant rehabilitation duo Very Sad Lab!
An installation view of a tiny gallery space shows a long wood desk and shelving set up against one wall, holding jars and pots of plant clippings with a flat screen TV mounted to the wall in the center. The back wall is painted green with white text on it: "The Incubator Resource Lab." More plants hang from the ceiling. The floor is concrete and painted dark grey.

5 Questions with Stephanie J. Williams
Posted: January 27, 2022
Category: Artist Spotlight
Throughout 2022, NMWA’s #5WomenArtists campaign will champion emerging and underrepresented artists. Get to know D.C.-based interdisciplinary artist Stephanie J. Williams!
In this screen still from a puppet stop motion animation, minature sculptures made from wood, metal, and other materials are arranged on top of, and hang above, green turf, set against a pitch black background. The sculpture's shadows appear on the turf. The sculptures are made up of various circular designs.

Ruth Orkin: On the Scene
Posted: September 15, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Celebrated photographer Ruth Orkin (1921–1985) told stories in a single frame. Today, 100 years after her birth, a recent publication and works from NMWA’s collection illuminate her singular career.
Ava Gardner, a woman with light skin tone and wavy, short brown hair, is shown from the shoulders up. She wears a jeweled necklace and is surrounded by lights and people at a party. She looks to the side of the camera at something out of frame with a fixed gaze and slight smile.

The Fine Print: Grace Arnold Albee
Posted: July 15, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Renowned for her intricate wood engravings of urban cityscapes and rural countrysides, American printmaker Grace Arnold Albee (1890–1985) explored the dualities of the natural and built worlds.
A black-and-white print of a pair of cicadas perched on the stems of wildflowers. Each blade of grass is delicately rendered; the hairy flower stems, imperfect petals, and lacy cicada wings appear almost tactile; and the low sun beams in ethereal spirals.

Collector Steven Scott Celebrates Amy Sherald
Posted: July 6, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Steven Scott, owner of Baltimore’s Steven Scott Gallery and a major donor of contemporary art to the NMWA collection, celebrates the career of Amy Sherald.
Wearing a bright yellow apron-style dress with strawberries and lace-trim details, an expressionless young woman with medium-dark skin tone rendered in grayscale stares out with her hands in her dress pockets. Her head is cocked to one side against an intensely pink-colored background.

Reclamation: Q&A with Jenny Dorsey
Posted: April 19, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Chef, writer, and artist Jenny Dorsey talks with us about her process and work, part of NMWA's new online exhibition RECLAMATION: Recipes, Remedies, and Rituals.
A light-skinned woman of Asian descent stands behind a large, wooden kitchen table that is full of two white dishes of finely plated food and various small, plastic to-go dishes., alongside a small bronze French Press coffee maker. The woman smiles and wears a grey tshirt under a black and white vertical striped apron.

Women to Watch 2020: Joli Livaudais
Posted: March 31, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Learn about artist Joli Livaudais's process and work, which was featured in Paper Routes, the latest installment of NMWA's Women to Watch exhibition series.
A light-skinned woman with short brown hair stands in front of a white wall to which paper beetles, sculpted out of photographs, are affixed. The woman holds a beetle in her open palm, while others are arranged atop her brown leather jacket. She smiles slightly at the camera while leaning against the wall.

Women to Watch 2020: Luisa Pastor
Posted: March 10, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Learn about Spanish artist Luisa Pastor's process and work, which was featured in Paper Routes, the latest installment of NMWA's Women to Watch exhibition series.
A beige rectangular work with fragments of small boxlike elements adhered together to create a textured surface.

Women to Watch 2020: Georgia Russell
Posted: March 1, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Learn about artist Georgia Russell's process and work, which was featured in Paper Routes, the latest installment of NMWA's Women to Watch exhibition series.
A rectangular paper work in a plexiglass box that shows thousands of slashes through the work to create waves and shadows throughout the surface. The color shifts from purple at the top to blue to red at the bottom.

Women to Watch 2020: Natasha Bowdoin
Posted: February 24, 2021
Category: Artist Spotlight
Learn about artist Natasha Bowdoin's process and work, which was featured in Paper Routes, the latest installment of NMWA's Women to Watch exhibition series.
A detail of contemporary paper art with a colorful painted base underneath thousands of cut alphabet letters in concentric designs.