There is an art buzz in the air. This fall and winter brings an array of exhibitions, events, and openings from galleries, art museums, arts centers, and arts organizations. Here is a list of recommended exhibitions to suit your art fix.
Michigan
DeVos Art Museum
1401 Presque Isle Ave, Marquette, MI 49855
UP Focus: Linda King Ferguson & Lindsey Heiden
On view through November 4, 2022
The UP Focus exhibition series features artists working in or influenced by the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Linda King Ferguson‘s and Lindsey Heiden‘s works are the focus of this year’s exhibition. And while their practices are radically different, there are commonalities. Each artist uses their intimate understanding of color, form, and materials to consider the concept of care and how it manifests. The connection to place may not be evident at first blush; the featured artists’ work reflects, reacts, responds, and grows from the rich culture and environment where it was made.
Linda King Ferguson’s Meridian Series stems from an awareness of body and environment. Her work considers energy centers in the body and what it means to radiate energy or joy. Ferguson’s work employs a deep understanding of color, shape, and pattern to translate unique phenomena in the environment, like Sundogs or the beauty of the everyday sunrises, into formal abstractions that provide viewers with a visual and bodily experience. Northwoods, neighborhood animals, genetically engineered animals, and fairytales inspire Lindsey Heiden’s elaborate and narrative work. Her colorful and fantastical hybrid creatures ask viewers to contemplate how we normalize caretaking relationships and what it means to nurture or protect someone or something that doesn’t look or think like us. Without providing answers, Heiden’s work imagines myriad forms care may take.
About the artists
Linda King Ferguson maintains a practice as a painter with studios in Au Train, MI, and Nashville, TN. She earned a MA from Rhode Island School of Design, an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and studied at Penland School of Crafts and Academia Di Belle Arti in Perugia, Italy. Ferguson’s recent solo exhibitions include Channel to Channel and Lipscomb University. Ferguson was awarded residencies at the Ragdale Foundation and Morris Graves Foundation.
Lindsey Heiden is an artist and educator residing in Dollar Bay, MI. She earned a BFA from Western Illinois University in 2007 and an MFA from University of Arkansas in 2018. Currently, Heiden teaches at Finlandia University and Michigan Technological University. She has shown work nationally and internationally and has been a resident artist at various studios, including the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, MT. When she is not in the studio, she is in the garden or the woods.
New to the Collection
On view through May 2023
Three groups of new acquisitions from the permanent collection are on display here for the first time: Lundmark and the Lake, Kinngait: Artists’ Reflections in Print, and Selections in Contemporary Illustration. The paintings, prints, and illustrations on view were acquired from 2020-2022 and highlight the community’s ongoing dedication to building a permanent collection for NMU, Marquette, and the wider Upper Peninsula region. Special thanks go to Rachel Crary, Jeffrey Wagner, Diane Kordich, Russell Magnaghi, and various artists for their gifts.
Lundmark and the Lake Features several oil paintings that have never been shown together in the UP. Leon Lundmark, a nationally recognized marine painter, frequently visited the UP during the summer, often painting Lake Superior and Lake Michigan during his stays. He gifted paintings to locals who became friends and appreciated his moody and sensitively lit depictions of familiar waters.
Kinngait: Artists’ Reflections in Print Features more than twenty prints depicting animals, people, and rituals that create a sense of place by Kinngait artists, including Saimaiyu Akesuk, Germaine Arnaktauyok, Kenojuak Ashevak, Sagiatuk Kakulu, Meelia Kelly, Ohotaq Mikkigak, Nikotai Mills, Kananginak Pootoogook, Malaija Pootoogook, Napachie Pootoogook, Pitaloosie Saila, and Ningeokuluk Teevee.
Selections in Contemporary Illustration This exhibition features a range of subject matter and media with artworks by Norm Breyfogle, John Hendrix, David Johnson, Anita Kunz, Scott Roberts, Burton Silverman, and Tyler Stout.
Jan Manniko: The Last Place on Earth
Through November 2022
Jan (Johnson) Manniko spent her life drawing and painting the people and places that define the Copper Country. This exhibition features nearly forty artworks from throughout Manniko’s career. Intricate but steady-handed pen and ink drawings of mine buildings, exuberant plein air landscapes, and emotional depictions of people provide a tender decades-long look into the culture of the Copper Country.
Jan Manniko was born in Chicago in 1933. Manniko demonstrated a passion for art beginning in her childhood. She studied at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and The Art Institute of Chicago before returning to the Copper Country in the early 1960s. Until her passing in 2013, Jan Manniko lived and worked in Allouez, Michigan, alongside her husband, Tom Manniko, a skilled woodcarver. They sold their wares alongside an eclectic array of antiques and found bottles in the iconic red building emblazoned with “The Last Place on Earth.”
Minnesota
Rochester Art Center
30 Civic Center Drive SE, STE 120, Rochester, MN 55904
“Melissa Ianniello: Wish it Was a Coming Out”
On view: August 3, 2022 – January 29, 2023
The Rochester Art Center in partnership with the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul presents a solo exhibition of photographs and interviews created by Italian artist Melissa Ianniello (b. 1991, Naples, Italy). Produced over the last four years, and starting from the artist’s own journey as a lesbian in Italy, the ongoing series Wish it Was a Coming Out, investigates the taboo of being older and gay in Italy, a country with a history and a culture deeply rooted in religious and traditional beliefs.
“Walk With Us”
On view: May 14 – December 11, 2022
Walk With Us is an international, walking-based art exhibition in which fifteen artists share their discoveries and artistic extrapolations from the social, physical, and psychic landscapes they explored while walking. This exhibition is presented in the non-gallery spaces (hallways, elevators, alcoves, etc.) of the Art Center to reflect both the wandering, wayfinding, and exploratory nature of walking-based art, and the shifting terrain covered by the artists. Image: @yumijroth.
“Walk Back to Your Body”
On view: September 3, 2022 – January 1, 2023
Wisconsin
Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass
165 North Park Avenue, Neenah, WI 54956
On view through February 5, 2023
Indiana Green Invitational at Levee Contemporary
518 West Water Street , Princeton, WI 54968
On view through November 12, 2022
Artdose Magazine is pleased to announce its annual Indiana Green Invitational featuring works by Hector Acuna (Cedarburg), Celeste Contreras (Milwaukee), Jayne Reid Jackson (Madison), Callie Kiesow (Milwaukee), Ann E. Lawton (River Falls), and Diane Levesque(Racine). Indiana Green is co-curated by Frank Juárez, Artdose Magazine, and Samantha Timm, Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel.
This year’s exhibition will be centered on the rituals of drawing whether using it as an expressive and creative tendency, creating preparatory sketches, observing the world through mark making, or using the medium for problem-solving and critical thinking. The process explored is as important as the final artworks itself. The exhibition’s aim is to create an environment that is educational, accessible, and communal.
Indiana Green Invitational is an annual group exhibition featuring 2-D and 3-D works by artists living and working in Wisconsin. The first Indiana Green was curated by Frank Juárez in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2010). What was supposed to be a one-year exhibition gradually grew into an annual exhibition gaining the attention of artists in Wisconsin. Since 2017, Indiana Green Invitational has been traveling across the state of Wisconsin with a new roster of artists and venues. To date, it has featured 90 artists and this year marks its 13th iteration.
Every year Indiana Green Invitational introduces a diverse body of work by artists working from such as but not limited to: drawings, paintings, mixed media, sculpture, printmaking, installation, textiles, glass, and photography. This exhibition features works that are significant today in Wisconsin’s contemporary art landscape. This exhibition provides artists the opportunity to network, collaborate, and to create new works.
Lily-Pad West Gallery
215 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202
Forward
On view through October 9, 2022
Forward Back in 1851, Wisconsin adopted Forward as its motto to reflect the state’s continuous drive to be a national leader. Since Lily Pad | West first opened almost six years ago, it too has strived to be a leader and bring great art to Milwaukee. As the gallery continues to grow and diversify its artist roster, it is committed to supporting contemporary, local artists. Lily Pad | West is pleased to present Forward as its first exhibition of all Wisconsin artists. Some of the gallery’s mainstay artists will exhibit in the show including Allison B. Cooke, Steve Gerhartz, Bruce Niemi, and Diane Washa, as well as newly invited artists Marc Anderson, Bethann Moran-Handzlik, and Ken Schneider.
Liminal Space featuring new work by Mississippi-based painter Cathy Hegman, California-based painter Kathy Jones, and New York-based sculptor Anne de Villemejane.
Exhibition dates: October 21 – November 20, 2022
Liminal space is a term for the place between here and there, the time between what was and what is to come. It is an unsettled moment where transition takes place, reflection is possible, and growth occurs. The artists of “Liminal Space” cross this threshold into the unknown, and create an opening for their viewers to follow suit. Fragmented environments, manipulated scale, and rich surface textures are all used to further the idea of a space in-between, and female figures are shown weaving in and out of these spaces. Ambiguous in persona, the figures invite the viewer to project their own histories and experiences onto the work, offering a companion and guide to what can be a difficult journey. We invite you to join us for an opening reception: Friday, October 21st 5 to 9pm (Gallery Night) and Saturday, October 22nd from 11am to 6pm
Steve Gerhartz – Solo Exhibition
Opening reception: Friday, December 2nd 5 – 9pm
Exhibition dates: December 2, 2022 – January 15, 2023
OS Projects
601 6th St, Racine, WI 53403
BRIAN DIVIS:
IN HIGH REGARD
OPENS NOVEMBER 12th @ OS PROJECTS
OS Projects presents In High Regard, an exhibition featuring mixed media works by Chicago artist Brian Divis. The exhibition opens November 12, 2022 and continues through January 14, 2023. An artist reception will take place on Saturday, November 12, from 1 – 3 pm.
In High Regard explores issues surrounding domesticity, gender, reverence and material tradition. The works in the exhibit are constructed from fibrous textiles, such as yarn, coated with metal and graphite powders. The materials pay homage to the artist’s rural Midwestern background, situated between a loving mother skilled in the craft of sewing and a labor-driven father who worked at the local wire and steel mill.
By combining craft-associated and industrial materials and destabilizing their tactile perceptions, Divis creates surfaces worthy of reverence while complicating the relationship between sculpture, painting, gravity and light. Through a process of revealing and concealing, the cultural, spiritual and art historical status of the objects and their materials are brought into question, while their gendered histories are reimagined.
As he transforms the conventional associations and perceptions of his materials and objects, Divis creates new aesthetic frames of reference that foster awareness of the forces at play in the formation of absolutes and stereotypes–advocating for acceptance and empathy over judgement and animosity. The goal, the artist states, is for the objects to emerge with a thick presence that prompts viewers to reconsider their socially constructed beliefs about the things often held in high regard.
About the Artist
Brian Divis is a Chicago area interdisciplinary artist and educator working in painting, sculpture and mixed media. He has exhibited with Chicago Sculpture International, DIALOGUE Chicago, Chicago Artists Coalition and Friends of the Arts. Recent exhibitions include Recent Works at Robert T. Wright Gallery (Grayslake, IL), By Degrees at 3D4D by CSI (Chicago), THREAD at Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati), IN DIALOGUE at Governors State University (IL), 2021 Evanston & Vicinity Biennial and TOGETHER, a virtual exhibition in coordination with Now About Art and the Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Divis holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MEd from Loyola University Chicago and BA in Art from Eastern Illinois University.
About OS Projects
OS Projects is a contemporary art gallery in downtown Racine featuring visual artists in solo and small group exhibits. The gallery’s primary focus is on artists living and working in the Chicago-Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee urban corridor. While the range of media the gallery presents is broad—encompassing painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and installation—the exhibited artists are unified in their engagement with topical issues, experimentation with materials and processes, and adherence to craft.
General Information
OS Projects is located at 601 Sixth Street, Racine, Wisconsin. Gallery hours are Saturdays, 12 – 5 pm, and by appointment. For more information, please visit the gallery website: osprojects.art.
William Kentridge: See for Yourself at The Warehouse Art Museum
1635 W. St Paul Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53233
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Celebrating 10 Years (2013- 2023) 