Image: Columbus Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art will present ‘Clare Rojas: Returning,’ an exhibition bringing together more than 60 paintings and sculptures by the Columbus-born artist from September 18, 2026, through February 7, 2027. The presentation, described by the museum as the first exhibition of Rojas’s work in her hometown, will occupy the Lower Level Walter Wing at the museum’s main building.
Rojas, born in 1976, is a painter, sculptor and musician whose career has extended across several decades. She spent most of that career in the San Francisco Bay Area before recently moving back to Ohio. The exhibition takes that return as a point of departure, examining the cyclical nature of life and the ways it shapes both the subjects and formal language of her work.
According to the museum, Rojas repeatedly revisits formal motifs, using them to consider how self-realization and caretaking change over time. Her subjects are personal but also archetypal, placing individual experience alongside broader questions of community and people’s relationship to the world around them. The exhibition will include works across varying scales and subject matter rather than focusing on a single period or medium.
Nature is a central element in Rojas’s practice, particularly in work informed by the philosophy of ecofeminism. The museum describes these works as presenting nature as a source of wisdom and as prompting reflection on environmental stewardship. Her visual language also draws on birds, witches, folklore and the natural world to explore transformation, intuition and renewal.
Works listed for the exhibition include ‘Ohio Landscape’ (2022), ‘Woman in Chair Reading with Fly’ (2021), ‘Just Take It All’ (2024), ‘The Gossips’ (2025), ‘The Glowing Night Shade’ (2022), ‘Patriarchy Walking the Dog with an Extend-a-leash’ (2021) and ‘I Will Always Have a Little Movie in My Head’ (2022). ‘The Gossips,’ an oil painting on linen, entered the museum’s collection through the Derby Fund. The exhibition image features ‘The Glowing Night Shade,’ from 2022.
Katherine Brodbeck, the Columbus Museum of Art’s deputy director for curatorial affairs, is curating the exhibition. It is supported by the Charles Kleibacker Endowed Fund for Excellence, the Scantland Family, Girlfriend Fund and Everything But The House. The exhibition is included with general admission, with free admission for museum members.
A members’ exhibition preview is scheduled for September 17 from 5 to 8 p.m., the evening before the public opening. The invitation-only event will include light hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar and a musical performance by Rojas. Brodbeck will also lead a public curator-led tour on October 22 from 6 to 7 p.m.; registration is free. ‘Clare Rojas: Returning’ remains on view through February 7, 2027.
