Lou Haney Solo Exhibition
Lou Haney's solo exhibition *Window Dressing* brings together the artist's vibrant, pattern-dense paintings in a new installation that transforms the domestic space into a theatrical stage. Drawing on mid-to-late-20th-century patterns and color schemes, Haney creates interiors that are both nostalgic and surreal, exploring themes of taste, consumption, femininity, and the domestic sphere. The centerpiece of the show is a set of oversized handmade curtains that frame multiple image layers, blurring boundaries between flatness and depth, interior and exterior, and organic and synthetic. The exhibition is part of MoCA Arlington's SOLOS 2026 program, which highlights Mid-Atlantic contemporary artists.
When: June 27 through September 13, 2026.
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (MoCA Arlington), 3550 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201. The exhibition is located in the Experimental Gallery on the lower level.
Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 12 PM to 5 PM, or by appointment.
Opening Reception: Art After Hours on Saturday, June 27, from 5 PM to 8 PM.
Artist: Lou Haney, an artist originally from Decatur, Alabama, with a BA from Rhodes College and an MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University. She has held residencies at MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and teaches Studio Art and Art History at Piedmont Virginia Community College, Sweet Briar College, and Charlottesville Middle School.
Description: Haney’s paintings embrace excess, combining bright colors, busy patterns, and dense interiors that examine nostalgia’s pleasures and risks. Inspired by the Pattern & Decoration Movement of the 1970s and 80s, she uses florals and patterns associated with femininity to reflect both creative possibilities and social restrictions of domestic craft traditions. In *Window Dressing*, skewed perspective and exaggerated scale create surreal spaces. The installation’s oversized handmade curtains evoke a window and a stage, asserting the theatricality of the work and embracing the domestic sphere as a site of performance and fantasy.
Related Programs: The exhibition is part of MoCA Arlington’s SOLOS 2026, a series of solo exhibitions by Mid-Atlantic artists launched in 1988. An opening reception (Art After Hours) is scheduled for June 27, 5–8 PM.
Admission: Price information is not available; check the museum’s website or contact the venue for current admission details.
Accessibility: The venue is accessible via Metro (Orange and Silver Lines, Virginia Square Station) and Metrobus Line 24P / ART Line 41. Gallery hours include by-appointment access; contact the museum for specific accessibility accommodations.
Note: This solo presentation runs concurrently with the group exhibition *Material Matters* (June 27 – September 13, 2026) elsewhere in the museum, but *Window Dressing* occupies its own dedicated space in the Experimental Gallery.