Shirley Woodson:
Bright Moments
May 8 - June 20, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, May 8, 5-7 pm
At Matéria Eastern Market (1343 E. Fisher Freeway)
Matéria Gallery is thrilled to present Shirley Woodson: Bright Moments, a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings spanning from 1992 to 2025 by the artist, educator, arts advocate, and 2021 Kresge Eminent Artist.
Woodson’s paintings connect with Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Bright Moments—a live album created in 1973 and released in 1974—and his musicality in general, as they express vitality and improvisation like the simultaneous playing of several instruments present in the late musician’s performances. In Shirley Woodson’s paintings color acts as life force from which figures appear and disappear—a part of the environment itself—in a continuum of energies that celebrate all kinds of bodies, where different expressions become a dynamic one.
Woodson recalls what she experienced when she first saw Niagara Falls, from both sides, saying it was beyond her imagination, like being in the clouds and touching the elements of the Earth. This vivid and transcendent moment carries into a series of works she created in the 1990s, a few included in her new exhibition, Bright Moments.
In more recent painting works, typography and explicit references to Black history and cultural legacies intermingle on the surface of the paintings to remind us more directly of our responsibilities in this world, as direct and indirect agents of our present and future realities. The three large drawings included in the exhibition, also from the 1990s, reflect dream-like states, collages of brilliant, animated insights.
Woodson’s works evoke the desire for complete freedom, a return to our very expressive core, fully connected to Life, embodying our most fundamental natural human rights.
Shirley Woodson: Bright Moments opens to the public on Friday, May 8, with a reception with the artist from 5 pm – 7 pm, at Matéria Eastern Market.
SHIRLEY WOODSON
Shirley Woodson, (b. 1936, Pulaski, TN) known for her brilliant and intense color paintings, has developed over her long career many themes that reflect her perspective on African American culture and the diaspora. In 2022 Woodson received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award—awarded each year to 15 gender non-conforming, and trans artists over the age of 40 at a critical junction in their career—and in 2021 was named an Eminent Artist by Kresge Arts in Detroit. In December 2021, Woodson’s solo exhibition entitled Shield of the Nile Reflections opened at the Detroit Institute of Arts and ended in June 2022. Woodson’s residencies include MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Peterborough, NH; the Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Brandywine Printmaking Workshop in Philadelphia; and the Heritage House Museum in Detroit, MI.
Woodson’s works are in many public and private collections including the Detroit Institute of Arts; Studio Museum of Harlem; Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Wayne State University, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Art, Boston, MA; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY; Florida A and M University; African American Library, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.; Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC; the Williams Museum, Scripps College, Claremont, CA; the Mott Warsh Collection of Contemporary Art, Flint, MI. Woodson received a BFA and MA in painting from Wayne State University including graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in painting and art history.
