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Future Exhibitions An Impossibly Normal Life Matthew Finley October 11,2025 - January 18, 2026 + View Past Exhibitions View Current Exhibition

Matthew Finley An Impossibly Normal Life chronicles a personal history, situated in a reality in which queer family structures and gender non-conforming individuals are not only commonplace but openly celebrated. Inspired by artist Matthew Finley’s discovery that he once had an uncle who may have been gay, the artworks on view depict an America where individuals like Finley’s Uncle Ken are given the opportunity to experience life’s big moments without fear. Finley creates windows into a parallel universe that follows Uncle Ken’s life through an immersive installation of found photographs, household items, and invented letters written by the artist, reclaiming ordinary moments and centering queer joy. The exhibition chronicles Uncle Ken’s life as if one were flipping through a family photo album, highlighting moments such as his first heartbreak and his time in the Navy, all the way up to his marriage and the beginnings of his own family. By embellishing many of the images with glitter, rhinestones, and sequins, Finley reframes the past with a sense of pride. Together, these works create a fictional yet affectionate portrait of Uncle Ken and offer a vision of a more inclusive and hopeful future. Image credit: Matthew Finley, Rebel, Brute and I in the Navy , archival inkjet print mounted to board, glitter and varnish, 2024.Courtesy of the Artist.

Past Exhibitions Legacy of Care: 70 Years of Medical Innovation Antelope Valley Medical Center August 2, 2025 - September 28,2025 + 40th Annual All Media Juried Art Exhibition MOAH and MOAH:CEDAR June 7 - July 20, 2025 + 40th Annual High School Student Art Exhibition Antelope Valley Union High School District April 3, 2025 - May 18, 2025 + Uncovering Existence: Selections from the Museum's Permanent Collection February 15 - March 16, 2025 + Dream Feelers Thinkspace Projects December 15, 2024 - February 2,2025 + Luminous Mysteries Human Symmetries Nikolas Soren Goodich September 28 - November 24, 2024 + Echoes of Nature Nathaniel Ancheta August 3 - September 15, 2024 + Juried Art Exhibition 39th Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition June 1 - July 20, 2024 + 39th Annual High School Student Art Exhibition Antelope Valley Union High School District March 28 - May 12, 2024 + Godeleine de Rosamel Anticipating February 3 - March 17, 2024 + More +

Hands That Feed Us Michael James October 11,2025 - January 18, 2026 + Current Exhibitions View Past Exhibitions View Future Exhibitions

An Impossibly Normal Life Matthew Finley January 13 - March 15, 2026 Back to All Exhibitions

Together with the Museum of Art & History, MOAH:CEDAR is a catalyst for engaging a diverse audience through captivating exhibitions, innovative artists and dynamic programming. The gallery aspires to encourage progressive ideas and experimental genres of artwork, highlighting performance, education On view until January 18, 2026 Learn More Michael James, The Weight of Yield , 2025, Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the Artist View our full event calendar >> FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM Follow

Event Calendar Recurring Events Spotlight Café Figure Drawing Creative Pollination Every Fourth Friday of the month Doors Open 5 PM Open-Mic Performances 6 PM Event goes until 8 or 9 PM (depending on number of acts) Every second and fourth Sunday of the month First session ( beginner or advanced-clothed) 1 - 3 PM Second session ( advanced-clothed or nude-18+) 3:30 - 5:30 PM Every third Thursday of the month Share your artwork Special Guest Speakers Workshops 5-8 PM

a mirror with breath like stone Joy Ray September 23, 2023 - November 19, 2023 Back to All Exhibitions Joy Ray’s interdisciplinary practice explores textiles as instruments of divination, adopting techniques like quilting and weaving to conduct inquiries into the spectral, speculative, and unreliable. Central to Ray’s research into the unknowable are methods of abstraction, concealment, illumination, and reconstitution that extract visual language from source materials like archival texts and oral histories. a mirror with breath like stone utilizes the history of MOAH:CEDAR as a former jail, courthouse, and library examining the permeation of time through the aesthetics of archival decay. Her use of tombstone-like textile sculptures immortalizes the historic front-page stories from the Antelope Valley Ledger-Gazette . Encrusted with charcoal, ash, and sand from the nearby desert, these works evoke the fires that periodically ravaged Lancaster’s archival records and municipal buildings. Using translucent silk banners, fabric, chicken wire sculptures, and audio works on vintage records, viewers are transported through the layers of spectral history of MOAH:CEDAR. Joy Ray lives and works in Hawaiʻi and Los Angeles. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Quilts and Textiles in San Jose, California, the Hawaiʻi Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum, and the Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in Lancaster, California. Ray’s work is held in the collection of MOAH and in private collections. She has been featured in publications including the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Artillery, and whitehot . Joy Ray holds a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College.

This recent body of work he's called Fairyland has developed a definite camp sensibility (not dissimilar to the theatrical confections of Cecil Beaton in the 1920’s). Camp, having been described as the lie that tells the truth, is an innate language he has been reticent to explore until recently. Perhaps internalized homophobia has left him hesitant to make work so boldly queer – in every sense of the word – making art so openly flamboyant. Purposely stamped with informed wit and a wry knowing humor, this new work is first and foremost intended to visually delight and be taken seriously . Among other things, it touches on the weighty tableau of the Temptation of St. Anthony of the Desert and the perilous trials of Herakles. His aesthetic expression is influenced by his instinctive inclination to lighten somber somewhat ponderous existential themes with a gay touch (consciously using this word in both its current identity-laden fraught understanding and the anachronistic yet more delightful sense). While the work possesses decidedly camp sensibilities it is never ironic as is so often the current fashion. He finds irony frequently cynical; his work is never cynical for no other reason than the inherent affection he holds for his motley crew of heroes, saints and sinners .He draws indiscriminately upon diverse seemingly unrelated archetypes and themes from many sources, including Classical mythology, British folklore, Wagnerian operas and the biblical text of my Catholic youth, doing so in order to touch upon that which is culturally familiar to him, to others – and if we believe Jung – found deeply rooted as archetypes in our souls. These eternal themes provide me ample, seemingly endless, means of interpretation. As a person steeped in the Western tradition of literature and the visual arts, it is a rich fertile field he feels most comfortable in adopting. The work presented at Fairyland are these familiar themes, explored many times over by countless artist; yet this time re-imagined through a prism of his own. His play upon cultural themes hopefully adds a sentence or two to this ongoing cultural conversation. Working in variety of mediums, and a fabulist by nature, it is my intention to create a theatrical spectacle that is peculiar, visually arresting and deeply personal. Although the work is made solely for his own delight, He hopes others find the work meaningful in some way. He also hopes visitors feel inspired to resist the siren call of selfies and pause instead, if only for a moment, as these works are visually dense and to add their own voice to this enriching and frequently neglected conversation. With that, welcome to his Fairyland.

Juried Art Exhibition 2018 Various Artists May 5, 2018 - June 3, 2018 Back to All Exhibitions The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) and MOAH:CEDAR are excited to announce the Museum’s 33rd Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition. The exhibition kicks off with an opening reception celebrating local artists on Saturday, May 5 from 4 to 8 p.m. Beginning at 6 p.m. an awards ceremony will take place where over $1,000 will be awarded to participants. The exhibition will run from Saturday, May 5 through Sunday, June 3. This year’s jurors include local, and regionally recognized artist, Tina Dille, and Director of Los Angeles-based artist marketing firm, Shoebox Projects, Kristine Schomaker. Artists interested in submitting work should note that the Museum will only accept entries online, through CaFE (www.callforentry.org). For those unfamiliar with online submissions, information sessions detailing the process will be available at MOAH on April 25 from 3 to 6 p.m. Participants will have the opportunity to submit their work through CaFE’s online system during these sessions with the assistance of MOAH staff. The entry period for the 33rd Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition runs from now through April 27. For more information regarding information sessions and submission guidelines, visit facebook.com/moahcedar. A $2 processing fee will be charged for a single submission with guaranteed acceptance. Each additional submission (up to three pieces total) will charge an additional $5, which will be submitted for jury. The exhibition, will be on view Saturday, May 5 through Sunday, June 3 during MOAH:CEDAR’s regular hours of operation, Thursday through Sunday from 2 to 8 p.m. Community members are invited to view the art and share photos on Instagram using #MOAHJuried2018 . Visitors are also encouraged to vote for their favorite pieces using #MOAHPeoplesChoice , as the artwork with the most votes on Instagram will receive a special prize following the exhibition.

What is Black and White and Pink allover? Amy Kaps September 15, 2018 - November 25, 2018 Back to All Exhibitions Kaps, an interdisciplinary artist, is in constant dialogue with her surroundings and those who inhabit it. Highly conceptual with the intention of altering perception and provoking thought, Kaps’ objective is to create honestly and question the status quo while reveling in a feast for the senses. Kaps challenges the viewer to decipher the common denominators and recognize the similarities within the differences that connect us regardless of age, race, or gender. What is Black and White and Pink allover? is Kaps’ latest exhibition in her Victus Versus/Striped World series, transforming the MOAH:CEDAR galleries into one of her iconic black, white, and striped installations. A new series of work by Kaps and her longtime collaborator, photographer Eric Schwabel, will also adorn the gallery as well as video installations done in collaboration with lovemando a.k.a. Armand Briones featured in the blackroom