2019 EXHIBITIONS
STELLA ARTIST COLLECTIVE
More Pink Noise
Oct 10 - Nov 11
At Var Gallery on 5th
More Pink Noise: Works by the Stella Collective“The pink noise pattern has been found in most genres of music, the shot lengths in Hollywood films, the structure of DNA, the rise and fall of the tide, the flow of traffic and variations in the stock market. The world is basically awash in pink.” — Meghan Neal, The Many Colors of Sound, The "Atlantic"
"Pink Noise" is a metaphor for the dynamics of the Stella Collective. The pink noise sonic pattern is a mixture of all the audible frequencies playing simultaneously, where every octave has equal power. An unrelenting desire to have their voices expressed in unison in this particular political time led the group to create an exhibition with each member contributing their own take on pink noise.
For the past nine years, the Stella Collective has been cultivating support among women in the fine art world. The members gather monthly to show and critique new work, develop practices and promote community. Rooted in photography, their individual approaches also incorporate video, installation, fiber, sound, andsculpture in order to explore and expand the boundaries of the medium.
The Stella Collective artists: Suzette Bross, Patty Carroll, Barbara Ciurej + Lindsay Lochman, Liz Chilsen, Christine DiThomas, Mary Farmilant, Rita Koehler, Mayumi Lake, Jean Sousa, Margaret Wright
EMILY ELHOFFER & JESSICA HUNT
Consider Me, Consider You
June 8 - Aug 19
At Var Gallery on 5th
Consider Me, Consider You, a two-person exhibition features St. Louis based artists Jessica Hunt and Emily Elhoffer. Both artists utilize sculpture to create works that relate to the body, ideas of selfhood, and our relationships to others. Whilst the artists maintain individual aesthetics and ways of making, they meet via a shared interest–to use vulnerability in their work as a nexus for dialogue about empathy, understanding, and to engage with viewers.
Emily Elhoffer addresses conflicts of the body and culture through sculptures. From stretching latex over rigid metal frames to pouring plaster into bulging distended elastic sacks, Elhoffer utilizes materials and processes that evoke bodily masses and skin-like surfaces. Elhoffer ruminates on the nature of physiological change, beauty, value systems applied to the body and the male gaze. “The human form has become a material to be shaped, sculpted, and objectified. In an inverse way, I humanize material to discuss ideas about selfhood, augmentation, and the changing context of one’s bodily experience.”
Jessica Hunts work concerns itself with interpersonal relationships and individual experiences. Feelings of intimacy, be it vibrant and life-giving or strained and broken, is played out in ambiguous sculptural forms made from materials such as chicken wire, welded steel, clay, or wire. The forms are finished with various types of skin or external marker that prompts the viewer into further exploring the relationship. “I am specifically interested in how we create, maintain, or destroy our relationships, and how certain experiences come to define who we are as people.” The sculptural forms are prompted by personal narratives pulled from diaries, intimate conversations and collected stories offering an entry point for the viewer that allows for a more empathetic understanding of the relationships and experience.
Emily Elhoffer is an emerging artist who explores power, beauty, and toxic value structures of femininity in her sculptural practice. She graduated from Kansas City Art Institute with a B.F.A. in sculpture, and her national mixed media practice is based in St. Louis where she manages a makerspace and artist community. Process, material, and experimentation drive my studio practice.
Jessica Hunt was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where she presently resides. During undergrad she studied sociology where her interest in human dynamics and interpersonal relationships ultimately helped steer her conceptual interests in her artistic practice. She received her MFA in 2018 from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and currently teaches sculpture at John Burroughs School.
MKE
Influencers
April 6 - June 1
At Var Gallery on 5th
The group exhibition features 38 Milwaukee artists who have made considerable achievements and contributions within their respective fields. Each artist will exhibit one work, representing nearly every field within the visual arts. The exhibit delivers a multitude of disciplines, objects and aesthetics, as well as artistic backgrounds, histories and identities. The vastly diversified exhibition is curated by Josh Hintz who strung the show together with what is shared; éclat and ingenuity.
Exhibiting artists are :
Reggie Baylor, Brent Budsberg, Ray Chi, Kyoung Ae Cho, Santiago Cucullu, Michael Davidson, Melissa Dorn, Paul Druecke, Richard Galling, Nina Ghanbarzadeh, Michelle Grabner, Jon Horvath, Niki Johnson, Mutope Johnson, Frank Juarez, David Najib Kasir, Greg Klassen, kathryn e. martin, Colin Matthes, Shane McAdams, Shana McCaw, Kevin Miyazaki, Joseph Mougel, Keith Nelson, Stacey Williams Ng, Rosemary Ollison, Will Pergl, Nirmal Raja, Tia Richardson, John Riepenhoff, Jill Sebastian, Ariana Vaeth, Leslie Vansen, Shane Walsh, Della Wells, Chris Willey, Jason S. Yi, Rina Yoon
"As artists we have the power to change the contemporary art landscape in our own community through supporting artists, presenting at conferences, writing articles, advocating for art and art education at the local, state, and national level, mentoring emerging artists, leading by example, and embracing diversity..."
- Frank Juarez
Frank Juarez: gallery director, art educator, artist, author, presenter, and arts advocate living and working in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
With so many prominent artistic voices in one room, MKE Influencers validates the robust and diverse art scene that stretches far beyond the region. These artists have made a name for themselves through a devoted studio practice, innovation, dynamic risk taking and complexity in craft and concept. Beyond the acclaim and status that the above artists have reached, these individuals are devoted to enriching and giving back to this city. Much of their time and resources are spent on community outreach; integrative projects, teaching, writing, curating, activism, and even opening galleries of their own. They continuously create space for dialogue, challenging the way we view and interact with art, and thus, one another.
“It’s been a while since there was a celebration of our local artists, and what they are doing to uplift the creative industry. So I wanted to gather this talent and put them in the same room, because most of them haven’t shown together.”
- Josh Hintz
MKE Influencers Exhibit Celebrates Diverse Group of Local Artists and their Community Contributions Milwaukee Independent 11 April 2019, milwaukeeindependent.com
COPA
11th Annual Members Exhibition: Blue
Jan 4 - x x
At Var Gallery on 2nd
Join CoPA and the Var Gallery, jurors Tyler Friedman (Museum of Wisconsin Art Associate Curator of Contemporary Art) and John Sobczak (Gallery Director, the Alice Wilds) in celebrating photographs selected and curated to evoke BLUE. Comments and awards at 6:30P.
Blue is a primary color.
Blue is a state of mind.
Blue is a homophone.
Blue is a subject for philosophical inquiry (cf. William Gass’ On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry)
Blue was invented by Yves Klein… well, International Klein Blue was.
Blue is a wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres.
Blue came to signify boys during the 1940s.
Blue occurs in natural minerals; lapis lazuli and azurite, for example.
Blue does not appear in the cave paintings of the Upper Paleolithic.
In German, “to be blue” means to be drunk.
Music can be blue; for instance, Bluegrass, the blues, and blue notes.
Blue is a style of comedy that is off-color, risqué, indecent or profane, largely about sex.
Blue spans all genres. Blue is limitless.
(I) (We) (They) Love
Feb 9 - x x
At Var Gallery on 2nd
Var Gallery’s next exhibition, (I) (We) (They) Love, explores the myriad of ways in which love is expressed, felt and communicated. Love, as a universal theme, is exceedingly difficult to define. Having an open call for this exhibition left it up to the artist to interpret this elusive emotion. It also added an element of surprise for the jurors selecting work. Yet, even if love is captured by an artist successfully, it doesn't always hit. Just as we find in the dating world, the subjectivity, fluidity and finicky nature of attraction can cause a misconnect between art object and observer. In selecting work for the show, the jurors looked for a diversity of expression in concept, subject matter and material.
Selected artworks traverse across the human experience to express the romantic gesture both figuratively and abstract. Emotions of intimacy, desire, wonder, affection, compassion, hope and ecstasy sit in conversation with their own opposition. Droplets of jealousy, melancholy, betrayal, envy and longing give the exhibition an accurate representation of the delicacies of human experience.
June 14 - x x
At Var Gallery on 2nd
"Semi-Functional" is a limited survey of local and regional makers who create furniture and functional objects at the core of their production, but also maintain parallel practices that inform the objects they create and result in hybrid forms that skirt the line between functional and aesthetic.
Current Projects Bio:
Current Projects works in close collaboration with artists, filmmakers and museum professionals to execute unique and challenging projects. Our team of artists, designers and craftspeople, as well as our extensive network of specialized sub-contractors, bring experience and expertise to a diverse array of projects including artworks, exhibitions, architectural models and furniture, as well as sets and props for the film industry. We offer design and in-house fabrication at our Riverwest facility.
Recent projects include Skew – a timber framed public sculpture by Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg, currently on view as part of Sculpture Milwaukee, Mrs. M’s Cabinet, an elaborate 19th century period room at the Milwaukee Art Museum designed in collaboration with the Chipstone Foundation, and sets and architectural scale models built for the Oriental Theater policy trailer, in collaboration with SRH marketing. Current Projects is a division of McCaw/Budsberg Collaborations LLC.
Semi-Functional
10 YEARS OF MIAD PHOTO ALUM
Never Gonna Give You Up
Sept 27 - x x
At Var Gallery on 2nd
Never Gonna Give You Up: 10 years of MIAD Photo Alumni
“Never Gonna Give You Up” is a survey exhibition of Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Fine Art alumni who routinely make use of photography in their studio practices. The 20 included artists represent each of the last ten graduating classes at MIAD (2010-19) and have since established careers in book publishing, filmmaking, curation, art direction, arts administration, and higher education, and consistently exhibit their personal work on a national level. The work in this show spans a variety of photographic strategies including cinematic narratives, performance, material experimentations, self-portraiture, and others, and provides a glimpse into the primary concerns of a new generation of photographic artists coming out of Milwaukee.
Exhibiting Artists Include:
Jaclyn Tyler Poeschl, aryn kresol, Deb Leal, Autumn Elizabeth Clark, Julia Kozerski, Hayley Eichenbaum, Grant Gill, Sarah Stankey, Kayla Massey, Be Oakley, Saige Rowe, Sarah Sickles, SolAh Do, Kelly Cassel, Scott Sheffield, Daniel McCullough, Brandon DeSha, Brian Pfister, Daniel Chung, Tyler Yomantas
Figure Exhibition
Aug 24 - x x
At Var Gallery on 2nd
Var Gallery once again investigates the concept of the figure. The exhibition will feature select works from artists depicting the figure in all forms. The show was juried by Allison Taylor & Ariana Vaeth. The exhibition will be on display through Saturday, September 21st.
Exhibiting artists include:
Susan E. Boehm, Deb Dila, Andrea Dolter, Daniel Fleming, David Najib Kasir, Dale Knaak, Nita Moore, Andy Pilarski, Karina Polasky, Sara Risley, Jack Schnable, Brain Schneider, Karen Stewart, Felonee Webster