Art Exhibition: Moth Ball

When

Feb. 20, 2026 - Jun. 13, 2026, 10am to 5pm
Show Recurring Dates

Campus Location

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art / Harry Reid Center

Office/Remote Location

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Window Gallery
Photographic images of moths are printed on a misty blue background. The moths have been arranged in a gentle arc, facing upwards. Each moth is different to the one next to it—large, small, patterned or plain; yellow, white or gray.

 

Ash Ferlito and Patrick Costello, Moth Ball, Athens, NY, June 25, 2022 (detail), 2023, Four-color Risograph Print on 80lb acid-free paper, acid-free tape

 

Description

The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is proud to present Moth Ball, an installation of a single risograph print in the Museum’s Window Gallery.

Moths are an often-overlooked source of natural beauty and wonder. In their print, "Moth Ball, Athens, NY, June 25, 2022," artists Ash Ferlito and Patrick Costello document some of the species they encountered over a single night of mothing. Mothing is the practice of shining a UV light through a taut cloth at night, attracting insects to a surface where they can be harmlessly observed and recorded. The species in Moth Ball were identified during a gathering of friends, artists, and scientists that took place on the 2022 summer solstice in the small town of Athens near the eastern border of Greene County, New York. Revelers celebrated the moths with music, a banquet of moth-themed food, and a forest walk.

The mothing evening has since become an annual event, also known as Moth Ball. Costello refers to it as “part citizen science project, and part site-specific outdoor pageant. A ritual, an immersive piece of performance art, a banquet, and an experiment, with the goal of calling attention to the often-invisible webs that embed us within ecosystems. It reminds us that in fact, each one of us contains ecosystems ourselves–as holobionts, we overlap and damage and nourish and extract and create life simply by existing.”

Moth Ball will be on view in the Window Gallery of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art from February 20–June 13, 2026. The Museum is open from Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., but the Window Gallery is always on view. You can find it on the south exterior wall of the building. Entry is free.

About the artists

Ash Ferlito

Ash Ferlito’s practice emerges from deep engagement with the natural world, particularly through the observation of moths and birds. Her multidisciplinary work—spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, and experimental rewilding gardening—invites wonder, reorients perception, and proposes new ways of gathering and seeing. Ferlito has exhibited her work in the United States and internationally. She has several ongoing collaborative projects: MOTH BALL, an annual mothing-art event; The Marshy Garden, a pollinator-supporting garden project at The Soil Factory, Ithaca, NY; and the Skowhegan Bird Club, a bird club for artists. She has an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, and a BA from Yale University. She currently lives and works in Ithaca, NY.
 

Patrick Costello

Patrick Costello is an artist whose work comes alive through multi-species collaborative relationships, integrating practices of ecological horticulture, installation, printmaking, and performance. His work has been exhibited in institutions across the United States. He has performed in a variety of locations, including museums as well as intentional communities, squats, and underground venues around the world. He completed an MFA in Combined Media at Hunter College in 2018 and earned a BA in Printmaking from the University of Virginia in 2008.

Admission Information

Free. Open to all. 

Contact Information

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
702-895-3381
barrick.museum@unlv.edu

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