The Columbus Museum of Art will present Clare Rojas: Returning from September 18 through February 7, 2027. The Columbus-born artist's first hometown exhibition will bring together more than 70 paintings, sculptures, works on paper and performance works, according to the Columbus Museum of Art.
A cross-disciplinary exhibition
Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the museum's deputy director for curatorial affairs, curated the exhibition, which spans 15 years of Rojas's work. Rather than treating painting, sculpture, works on paper and performance as separate categories, the presentation brings together recurring concerns that the museum associates with Rojas's practice, including abstraction, folk imagery, feminism, ecology, spirituality, music and storytelling, according to CMA.
The museum says the works are arranged in thematic groupings rather than chronological order. The presentation includes abstract works addressing origins and narrative works related to portraiture and landscape; some imagery also reflects Rojas's Peruvian heritage. Birds, moons, suns, tides, flowers and landscapes are among the recurring subjects identified by the museum.
Training and career
A downtown institutional setting
The museum is part of a broader concentration of educational and cultural institutions in downtown Columbus. According to the 2018 State of Downtown Columbus report from Capital Crossroads & Discovery Special Improvement Districts, four downtown institutions had 33,457 students in fall 2018.
Rojas earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, according to the San José Museum of Art. She later moved to San Francisco and became associated with the Mission School, a movement connected to the city's Mission District and its folk-art and street-culture influences, according to KQED.
A biographical account from the Jessica Silverman Gallery says Rojas began making portraits as a Columbus teenager after spending time at a local nursing home and listening to residents' stories. Her work has also included children's literature: she wrote and illustrated Pidgy, published in 2010 by IKON Gallery and the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, according to Galleri Nicolai Wallner.
Earlier work in public art and music
Rojas's public projects include a 2021 commission from the San José Museum of Art for 40 streetlight banners in downtown San José. The banners used stylized blackbird imagery, according to the museum's description of Wayfinder.
At the Columbus exhibition's opening, Rojas will perform as Peggy Honeywell. The Columbus Museum of Art says it will be her first public musical performance in more than a decade, although she has continued writing songs and poetry. Discogs lists Honey for Dinner, released in 2001 through Galaxia Records, and Faint Hums, released in 2005, among recordings issued under that name: Discogs.
Support and admission
The exhibition is supported by the Charles Kleibacker Endowed Fund for Excellence, the Scantland Family, Girlfriend Fund and Everything But The House. The museum says additional program details will be announced before the exhibition opens: Columbus Museum of Art.
The Columbus Museum of Art offers free general admission on Sundays through its Free for the Future initiative. The museum says the program applies to its permanent galleries and selected special installations; information is available through its admission page.
