Matéria Gallery

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Matéria Gallery Contemporary Art and Design Gallery. Matéria Eastern Market (EHXIBITIONS), Matéria Cass Corridor (OFFICE)

Opening in October 2008, Simone DeSousa Gallery was born as a physical reminder of art’s connectivity to community and social transformation, a space designed to channel inspiration in the form of some of the best manifestations of contemporary art today, and cultivate a new culture of art collecting in Detroit. Simone DeSousa Gallery was formerly known as Re:View Contemporary Gallery.

nother beautiful Eastern Market Saturday in Detroit☀️ Lots of great conversations with our visitors including a great gr...
10/17/2026

nother beautiful Eastern Market Saturday in Detroit☀️ Lots of great conversations with our visitors including a great group of students and faculty from Oakland University.

Matéria Eastern Market is open until 5 pm!

Olayami Dabls’ solo exhibition “Looking Back” is on view through October 31🔥




Feeling the presence of Olayami Dabls’ work “Looking Back #3” (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, on wood panel, 33 x 48 x 3 ...
10/17/2026

Feeling the presence of Olayami Dabls’ work “Looking Back #3” (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, on wood panel, 33 x 48 x 3 inches ✨❤️💛🖤🩶 The work is part of the artist’s solo exhibition on view through October 31. Swipe for a detail and an install view.

Matéria Eastern Market is open Saturdays, 11 am - 5 pm, and during the week by appointment. A must-see exhibition if you are visiting Detroit!

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. Dabls is the 2022 Kresge Eminent Artist, honored for his transformative work as a visual storyteller, muralist, and cultural place-maker in Detroit.



Join us in wishing an amazing 💫Happy Birthday💫 to fiber artist Lynn Bennett-Carpenter✨We love these images of the artist...
10/14/2026

Join us in wishing an amazing 💫Happy Birthday💫 to fiber artist Lynn Bennett-Carpenter✨

We love these images of the artist during the opening of her solo exhibition “Handwoven Drawings” at Matéria Cass Corridor, February 10 - March 30, 2024

We look forward to her next solo project opening in February 2027 at Matéria Eastern Market💫🔥

LYNN BENNETT-CARPENTER
Marcelyn (Lynn) Bennett-Carpenter is an interdisciplinary fiber artist and educator. Bennett-Carpenter earned a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2003. She served as the Artist-in-Residence of the Kingswood Weaving Studio at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (2003-2023). The Kingswood Weaving Studio is the largest, most beautiful hand-weaving studio in North America with its 60 floor looms. Bennett-Carpenter also taught at Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Maine (2023), Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, attended the Open Residency at Haystack (2018) and was a recent Good Hart Artist-in-Residence (2022). Lynn is also co-founder of the Namtenga Soundo Babisi Studio, an active weaving co-operative in Burkina Faso, West Africa that was established in 2007.

Bennett-Carpenter maintains an active practice through her studio in Pontiac, Michigan, and has exhibited extensively throughout North America including the solo exhibition Singluars at the Crooked Tree Art Center in Petoskey, Michigan; Landscapes Real and Imagined at Site: Brooklyn, New York; Extreme Fibers: Icons and the New Edge at Muskegon Art Museum; and The Social Fabric at Textile Society of America, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work is part of the Cranbrook Art Museum (CAM) collection, as well as several private and public collections, including the Applebaum Family Foundation in Birmingham, Michigan.




A closer look at Olayami Dabls’ “Looking Back #9 (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, aluminum, wood, on wood panel, 48 x 48 x...
10/10/2026

A closer look at Olayami Dabls’ “Looking Back #9 (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, aluminum, wood, on wood panel, 48 x 48 x 4 inches, part of the artist’s solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, and Mirrors. Looking Back” on view at Matéria Eastern Market through October 31 🔥 Swipe for a couple of details 🖤

☀️ Matéria is open this Saturday from 11 am - 5 pm ☀️

In Dabls’ creative practice, artworks are not separate from everyday life, they reflect community, expand connections throughout time and space, and create a window for reflection and healing. Invoking the inherent healing properties of specific materials such as iron, rocks, wood, mirrors, has become the foundation of his paintings and installations.

As one of the most ample and versatile elements on Earth, iron connects to abundance, strength, and advancement. Known as Earth’s preserved history books, rocks have recorded the changes in life and environment that have allowed humanity to flourish to our current state. Mirrors not only allow us to see our image, they allow us to also see what is behind us, connecting our present and past, and in African culture, have also been placed in carvings to repel negative energies. Wood is related to the strength and wisdom of trees, essential agents of life in this planet, and operates as a grounding element in the works.

Fusing layered references to African material culture, the urban landscape of Detroit, and personal symbology, the singular pieces in Looking Back are layered universes in themselves, where ordinary materials reveal their sacred properties, and tell the stories of lives expressed and transmuted.

- Link to full Press Release and Images: https://www.materia-art.com/dabls-looking-back




A beautiful perfect-weather Saturday in Detroit ☀️ And so many great conversations about Olayami Dabls and his work 🖤🔥 D...
10/04/2026

A beautiful perfect-weather Saturday in Detroit ☀️ And so many great conversations about Olayami Dabls and his work 🖤🔥 Dabls’ solo exhibition “Looking Back,” is on view through October 31💫 Not to be missed if you are visiting Detroit!

Matéria is open Saturdays, 11 am - 5 pm, and during the week by appointment

LINK to Press Release and Images: https://www.materia-art.com/dabls-looking-back

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. Dabls is the 2022 Kresge Eminent Artist, honored for his transformative work as a visual storyteller, muralist, and cultural place-maker in Detroit.




A closer look at Olayami Dabls’ “Looking Back #8”(2025-2026), part of the artist’s solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, ...
10/03/2026

A closer look at Olayami Dabls’ “Looking Back #8”(2025-2026), part of the artist’s solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, and Mirrors. Looking Back” on view at Matéria Eastern Market through October 31 🔥💚 Swipe for more views 🖤

Matéria is open today until 5 pm!

In Dabls’ creative practice, artworks are not separate from everyday life, they reflect community, expand connections throughout time and space, and create a window for reflection and healing. Invoking the inherent healing properties of specific materials such as iron, rocks, wood, mirrors, has become the foundation of his paintings and installations.

As one of the most ample and versatile elements on Earth, iron connects to abundance, strength, and advancement. Known as Earth’s preserved history books, rocks have recorded the changes in life and environment that have allowed humanity to flourish to our current state. Mirrors not only allow us to see our image, they allow us to also see what is behind us, connecting our present and past, and in African culture, have also been placed in carvings to repel negative energies. Wood is related to the strength and wisdom of trees, essential agents of life in this planet, and operates as a grounding element in the works.

Fusing layered references to African material culture, the urban landscape of Detroit, and personal symbology, the singular pieces in Looking Back are layered universes in themselves, where ordinary materials reveal their sacred properties, and tell the stories of lives expressed and transmuted.

- Link to full Press Release and Images: https://www.materia-art.com/dabls-looking-back






📸 Tim Thayer

Installation view of Olayami Dabls’ solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, and Mirrors. Looking Back,” currently on view at...
10/02/2026

Installation view of Olayami Dabls’ solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, and Mirrors. Looking Back,” currently on view at Matéria Eastern Market through Oct. 31 🔥✨✨ Open Saturdays 11 am - 5 pm, and during the week by appointment.

In Dabls’ creative practice, artworks are not separate from everyday life, they reflect community, expand connections throughout time and space, and create a window for reflection and healing. Invoking the inherent healing properties of specific materials such as iron, rocks, wood, mirrors, has become the foundation of his paintings and installations.

As one of the most ample and versatile elements on Earth, iron connects to abundance, strength, and advancement. Known as Earth’s preserved history books, rocks have recorded the changes in life and environment that have allowed humanity to flourish to our current state. Mirrors not only allow us to see our image, they allow us to also see what is behind us, connecting our present and past, and in African culture, have also been placed in carvings to repel negative energies. Wood is related to the strength and wisdom of trees, essential agents of life in this planet, and operates as a grounding element in the works.

Fusing layered references to African material culture, the urban landscape of Detroit, and personal symbology, the singular pieces in Looking Back are layered universes in themselves, where ordinary materials reveal their sacred properties, and tell the stories of lives expressed and transmuted.

- LINK to full Press Release and Images: https://www.materia-art.com/dabls-looking-back







📸 Photography John Donabedian

⭐️ TONIGHT ⭐️📽️ Viewfinder: Documentaries about Dabls in Detroit📆 Tuesday, September 29, 2026, 6-8pm📍 The State Theatre,...
09/29/2026

⭐️ TONIGHT ⭐️

📽️ Viewfinder: Documentaries about Dabls in Detroit
📆 Tuesday, September 29, 2026, 6-8pm
📍 The State Theatre, 233 S. State
🎟️ Free and open to the public

Repost
・・・
Join us this evening for Viewfinder, a screening centered around the work of Detroit artist 🎥 🎞️ 🎬

Organized in collaboration with Marquee Arts, Viewfinder presents the documentary films ‘How to Rust’ by Julia Yezbick and ‘N’Kisi Concorde’ by Brittin Richter and Nikki Sass, both of which highlight the art practice of current IH artist-in-residence Olayami Dabls. The screening will conclude with a panel discussion and brief Q&A featuring the filmmakers, moderated by IH Arts Curator Amanda Krugliak and AAFF Director Leslie Raymond.

Viewfinder is organized in conjunction with Dabls’ solo exhibition Grand Vision, which is currently on view in the IH Gallery through October 28, 2026.

📽️ Viewfinder: Documentaries about Dabls in Detroit
📆 Tuesday, September 29, 2026, 6-8pm
📍 The State Theatre, 233 S. State
🎟️ Free and open to the public

IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS

(1) A poster for the Viewfinder screening, featuring text information and a portrait of Olayami Dabls (Photo: David Guralnick, The Detroit News)

grandvision

Olayami Dabls, “Looking Back #5” (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, aluminum, rubber, wood, on wood panel, 45 x 48 x 4 inche...
09/25/2026

Olayami Dabls, “Looking Back #5” (2025-2026) Acrylic, mirrors, aluminum, rubber, wood, on wood panel, 45 x 48 x 4 inches, is part of the artist’s solo exhibition “Iron, Rocks, Wood, and Mirrors. Looking Back” currently on view at Matéria Eastern Market through October 31 🔥 Swipe for a detail. Not to be missed if you are visiting Detroit! ✨✨ ✨

Matéria Eastern Market is open Saturdays, 11 am - 5 pm, and during the week by appointment.

➖ Link to full press release and images: https://www.materia-art.com/dabls-looking-back




An incredible art evening in Arbor Arbor ✨✨✨ starting at the Rackham Auditorium with an enlightened conversation between...
09/23/2026

An incredible art evening in Arbor Arbor ✨✨✨ starting at the Rackham Auditorium with an enlightened conversation between artist and storyteller Olayami Dabls and writer Nichole Christian, part of the Penny Stamps lecture series, followed by the opening reception for Dabls’ solo exhibition “Grand Vision” at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery ❤️

When in Ann Arbor, don’t miss seeing this great exhibition!

So many congratulations Dabls! ✨✨🖤





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1343 E. Fisher Freeway
Detroit, MI
48207

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11am - 5pm

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+13138339000

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