Maya Lin: A Study of Water

April 21, 2022 – September 4, 2022
Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art

2200 Parks Avenue
Virginia Beach, VA

Maya Lin, Marble Chesapeake & Delaware Bay, 2022. Glass marbles and adhesive. Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery. Photo by Echard Wheeler.

Maya Lin, Marble Chesapeake & Delaware Bay, 2022. Glass marbles and adhesive. Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery. Photo by Echard Wheeler.

Virginia MOCA is pleased to present Maya Lin: A Study of Water, a solo exhibition that brings together a selection of the internationally acclaimed artist’s sculptural interpretations of water spanning several decades.

As water has always been an important subject of Lin’s environmentally focused artistic practice, works on view evoke its many forms and patterns, including rivers and their rise, oceans and their tides, icebergs and the detriment their melting poses. Created with artistic intuition and scientific research, the resulting pieces are compelling in their beauty and multivalence. They not only invite discovery, but also encourage contemplation about the many ways in which we need water and manage its powerful bearings on our environment. Lin often represents water as both pathway and boundary. In so doing, she calls forth the implications of its necessity, accessibility, scarcity, and abundance. This thematic presentation at Virginia MOCA correlates the global focus of Lin’s artwork to the unique place and time in which it is now being presented—a delicate landscape of regional waterways in the throes of an urgent battle for ecological balance.