Permanent Galleries
Room 1 — LIBRARY & RECEPTION
Welcome to MOCVA’s Library and Reception, where your museum experience begins.
Explore our collection of art books featuring artists, museums, and artistic traditions from around the world. Visitors are welcome to browse and enjoy these books during their visit. Books are available for on-site use only.
Our welcoming reception area also offers a comfortable space to relax and enjoy a cup of coffee or tea.
The reception area also includes our gift shop, where visitors can discover unique gifts and art-related items.
Room 2 — Dollhouse Hall
Step into a world where childhood imagination, creativity, and personal memories come to life. Explore children’s artwork illustrating different stages of artistic development and self-expression, alongside a collection of handcrafted dollhouses and miniature environments, each telling its own story through intricate details.
Throughout Dollhouse Hall, visitors will also discover miniature recreations inspired by personal memories, including My Studio and scenes inspired by the artist’s mother’s sewing room and kitchen. Together, these works invite visitors to explore the connections between childhood, imagination, memory, and art.
Room 3 — Children’s Artistic Development & Book Illustration
This gallery brings together examples of children’s artistic development with a collection of children’s book illustration. Drawings demonstrate how children’s visual language evolves, from early circles and disconnected body parts to more connected figures and depictions of family. Books, paintings, and imaginative artworks celebrate the role of storytelling and illustration in childhood creativity.
Room 4 — Workshop & Rotating Exhibition Gallery
Gallery Four brings together selected works from MOCVA’s permanent collection with rotating exhibitions by guest artists. The gallery explores memory, imagination, artistic transformation, and the stories that objects carry through time.
Luke — Soheyla Rashidyan
Created from an antique wooden chair, Luke transforms an ordinary object into a sculpture filled with character and history. Through its aged wood and assembled elements, the sculpture tells a story of memories, forgotten objects, and the passage of time, giving new life to something once familiar.
Rubens’ Garden — Soheyla Rashidyan
Inspired by the richness of Baroque painting and the artistic world of Peter Paul Rubens, Rubens’ Garden tells the story of a white mannequin transformed through flowers, fabric, and imagination.
With her brown eyes and floral dress, the figure becomes part of an imaginary garden where art and nature meet. The work connects beauty, identity, and transformation, carrying its own poetic story beyond the boundaries of traditional sculpture.
Pomona — Lorand Fekete (1999)
Created in bronze by Transylvanian-born sculptor Lorand Fekete, Pomona draws inspiration from the Roman goddess of gardens and fruit. Holding fruit in her hand, the reclining figure evokes a quiet moment of reflection, symbolizing growth, renewal, and humanity’s enduring connection with nature.
Donated to MOCVA in February 2018, the sculpture is part of the museum’s permanent collection.
Religious Folk Art Collection
This collection brings together handcrafted sculptures, miniature churches, devotional objects, and colorful religious imagery, many collected in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Each object carries a story of faith, tradition, and human creativity. Together, they reflect how artists have transformed ordinary materials into expressions of spiritual life, cultural memory, and imagination.
Rotating Exhibitions
Two gallery walls are dedicated to rotating exhibitions, offering guest artists opportunities to share their work and creative perspectives.
By welcoming changing exhibitions alongside permanent artworks, Gallery Four creates an ongoing conversation between established collections and new artistic voices.
Room 5 – Texas Heritage: Wisler Family Room
G. Clifton “Gary” Wisler Collection (1950–2006)
This room celebrates the life and literary legacy of G. Clifton “Gary” Wisler, a Texas writer, journalist, and educator.
Born in Oklahoma City in 1950, Wisler earned his degrees from Southern Methodist University and devoted much of his career to writing and education.
He authored approximately 70 books, many of them historical fiction for young readers. His novel My Brother, the Wind (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award.
The entire Wisler collection was generously donated to the Museum of Contemporary Visual Art (MOCVA).
The collection includes his original manuscripts, published books, personal computer, family photographs, artwork by his mother, decorative blue plates, and other personal belongings.
Through these objects, visitors can explore the creative life of a writer whose work contributed to children’s literature and the literary heritage of Texas.
As you enter the room, the three walls on the left, right, and directly ahead are dedicated to the Wisler Family Collection.
The fourth wall, behind visitors as they enter, features a separate artistic installation titled “Whispers in Blue.”
Please include the following description on the Permanent Galleries page.
Whispers in Blue
Inspired by Dutch Delft Blue Ceramics
Inspired by the centuries-old tradition of Delft Blue ceramics from the Netherlands, Whispers in Blue is an artistic installation celebrating the beauty of history, memory, and forgotten objects.
The installation brings together blue-and-white ceramic plates, vintage frames, sculptures, and decorative objects, creating a nostalgic atmosphere.
Images of traditional Dutch windmills, sailing ships, and historic architecture reflect the timeless charm of Delft Blue ceramics.
A turquoise bench adds warmth and character to this intimate corner, where every object seems to carry a story from the past.
Through the combination of old and new, complete and broken, the installation invites visitors to discover beauty beyond perfection.
It is a celebration of memories, imagination, and the quiet poetry of everyday objects.
“A place where even broken things overflow with beauty.”
Room 6 — Artist Affiliate Room
The Artist Affiliate Room at MOCVA is an evolving gallery space dedicated to showcasing the creativity and diverse artistic expressions of our affiliated artists.
Currently, the gallery features two dedicated walls displaying works by Glen Ayers and Todd Paulson, with an extensive collection of paintings by Glen Ayers.
As the gallery continues to develop, additional works by affiliated artists will enrich this space, celebrating artistic diversity, creativity, and the museum’s growing artistic community.
Step Into Our Permanent Collection
Explore the works that define MOCVA — paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces by the contemporary artists at the heart of our museum. Plan your visit and experience the collection in person.
