Matéria /26
Group Exhibition
Carole Harris, Jova Lynne, Shirley Woodson, and Olayami Dabls
Nov. 21, 2026 - Jan. 23, 2027
Opening Reception: Saturday, Nov. 21, 5-7 pm
At Matéria Eastern Market (1343 E. Fisher Freeway)
Matéria Gallery is thrilled to present Matéria /26, a group exhibition featuring the four artists that were presented in Materia's new Eastern Market space in 2026.
The exhibition brings together in conversation fiber works by Carole Harris, new photographs and sculpture by Jova Lynne, drawings and collages by Shirley Woodson, and paintings on paper and mixed-media paintings by Olayami Dabls. The exhibition is a celebration of all the transformation we have experienced this year, and the strength and uniqueness of these four artists' practices, which are so significant in the contemporary art conversations in Detroit today.
Matéria /26 opens to the public on Saturday, November 21, with a reception with the artists from 5 pm to 7pm and is on view through January 23, 2027. The exhibition is presented at Matéria Eastern Market in collaboration with Century Partners.
CAROLE HARRIS (b. 1943, Detroit, MI) received a BFA from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). Carole Harris’ work has been presented extensively worldwide and is included in several museum collections, including the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM), and the Cranbrook Art Museum (CAM), as well as several institutional and corporate collections, including the Wayne State University Art Collection, the Progressive Art Collection, and the Henry Ford Health System Art Collection. Recent solo exhibitions include Sargent’s Daughters Gallery, New York, NY, the Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI, the Saginaw Museum of Art, Saginaw, MI, and Simone DeSousa Gallery now Matéria Gallery, in Detroit. In 2015. Harris was awarded a Kresge Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship. Carole Harris’ work was recently on view at the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA), Flint, Michigan, in the solo presentation Threads of Time through April 12, 2026, as well as in a full retrospective solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) from April 25 through June 21, 2026, titled This Side of the River.
Her works is currently on view in the 4th Toronto Biennial through December 20, 2026, with the theme “Things Fall Apart: Notes on Rupture,” curated by Allison Glenn.
JOVA LYNNE (b. 1989, New York, NY) is a multidisciplinary arts practitioner of Jamaican and Colombian heritage, born and raised in New York City, and currently based in Detroit, MI. Lynne is interested in the parallels between fictional, historical, and personal archives in identity development. A student of archives, she seeks to subvert anthropological practice in utilizing lens, sculpture, and performative practices. Lynne received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2017, and has exhibited in a variety of galleries and public museums including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the National Gallery of Jamaica, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She is a grantee from various foundations which have supported her work in media and social practice-based projects in Kingston, Jamaica and Berlin, Germany in addition to the United States. Lynne’s work is part of the permanent collections of Henry Ford Hospital, Harvard Art Museums, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Wedge Collection, Progressive Art Collection and Cranbrook Art Museum amongst others. She is currently serving as the Co-Director + Artistic Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).
SHIRLEY WOODSON (b. 1936, Pulaski, TN) is 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.
OLAYAMI DABLS (b. 1948, Canton, MS) is the founder and curator of the MBAD African Bead Museum and Dabls African Bead Gallery in Detroit, Michigan. He established the museum to return art to its original purpose in African culture: not for entertainment or profit, but as a tool for emotional and cultural healing. Located at the intersection of Grand River and West Grand Boulevard, the museum and its surrounding installations invite visitors to explore the deep connections between material, memory, and identity.
Dabls’s practice, grounded in education and community engagement, reflects his belief that art can help restore balance and understanding. His murals across Detroit extend this vision, including a piece in Eastern Market depicting African women during enslavement and colonization, and another at Grand River and Warren that uses symbolic materials and imagery of snakes; ancient symbols of transformation and resilience.
In the 1970s, Dabls worked at the Afro-American Museum (now the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History), where he began questioning why African art and symbols were often viewed with fear. Confronting this legacy of colonization, he devoted himself to studying African material culture, ultimately founding MBAD in 1994 as a space to share art through an African-centered lens of history, spirit, and healing.
Olayami Dabls' work was recently presented in his first museum retrospective Detroit Cosmologies at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) from April 25 through July 12, 2026. His work was also presented in the solo exhibition Grand Vision (September 22 - October 28, 2026) at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor MI.
Dabls is the 2022 Kresge Eminent Artist, honored for his transformative work as a visual storyteller, muralist, and cultural place-maker in Detroit.