FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Info: Frank Juárez, frankjuarezgallery@gmail.com
Sheboygan, Wisconsin (September 20, 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.
Join us for an opening reception on October 8, 5-9pm. Levee Contemporary is located at 518 West Water Street , Princeton, WI 54968. Gallery hours are Friday, 4:00 – 7:00pm, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00am – 5:00pm. This exhibition will run from October 1 through November 12, 2022.
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.
Stay tuned for a list of programming activities to occur during this exhibition. For updates follow @leveecontemporary and @artdosemagazine on Instagram.
About the artists
Hector Acuna is an artist and educator from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Hector studied at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where he earned his BFA in 2015 before completing an MFA at Michigan State University in 2020. Hector is an Associate Professor for the University of Minnesota Morris where he teaches a painting course online.
Hector has had small group and solo exhibitions at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Scarabocchio Art Museum, Saugatuck Center for the Arts, and Noel Fine Arts Center. His work has also been juried into exhibition spaces including the Wisconsin Museum of Art, Trout Museum of Art, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Baton Rouge Gallery, and Wheaton College. Outside of his studio work, Hector has gained recognition for his en plein air paintings. In 2022, he was invited to participate in the Door County Plein Air Festival. Hector has received various awards including the Hipstamatic Entrepreneurship Award, and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Saugatuck Center of the Arts. Hector is an active member of the Cedarburg Artists Guild and has co-chaired Paint Cedarburg: A Plein Air Event for June of 2022. He currently resides and maintains his art practice in Cedarburg, WI.
Celeste Contreras is a Xicana – Indigenous artist who works in mixed mediums to share stories of ceremony, palimpsests and memory with reflections of identity. Her work includes illustrations, print, book arts and animation. Her research includes storytelling through images and objects, exploring the condition of the book and book form, recalling the of intergenerational trauma from migration and genocide of ancestors to relearning and decolonizing through ceremony and art. A recent MFA student, Contreras holds an MFA from UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, a BFA from Alverno College. Contreras was the 2019 Gathering Art, Stories and Place Artist-in-Resident with the Milwaukee Public Library where she published a 200-edition box set of artists’ books, Artist in the Library, that will be distributed throughout libraries in Milwaukee and libraries around the country. Contreras is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she lives with her husband and cats in the Riverwest neighborhood.
A Wisconsin native, Jayne Reid Jackson grew up in Milwaukee and Port Washington and attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a B.S. in Art. She began her work in intaglio and monotype after joining a private print workshop, AGB Graphics, and currently works out of her home studio in Madison, WI. She is known internationally for her mezzotint work, in which she is entirely self-taught through books, fellow printmakers and internet sources.
Her mezzotint work is consistently accepted into national and international print exhibitions, both juried and invitational, and is included in several large public collections in the US and Internationally. She is a member of several print societies across the US and exhibits regularly in their member exhibitions. Her work has been invited to be featured in international mezzotint festivals in Russia, India, and China.
Callie Kiesow received her AAS degree from the University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley in Menasha, WI and a B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. She is an artist living and working in Milwaukee, WI, and an artist in residence at Var Gallery. She works primarily with charcoal and plaster and focuses on the human form.
Ann E. Lawton, MS, ATR-BC, is a mixed media artist, art therapist, and art educator. She is a lecturer in the Art Department and is the campus violence prevention coordinator at the University of Wisconsin—River Falls. Additionally, Ann facilitates in-home and group art therapy in the Twin Cities metro area.
Originally from upstate New York, Diane Levesque earned her B.A from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh and her M.F.A. from the University of Chicago. She moved to Kenosha in 1991, where she taught fine art as an Associate Professor of Art at Carthage College from 2004- 2022.
Levesque has exhibited her work as a professional artist both regionally and nationally since 1980. She has received numerous awards and grants including a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship Grant (2000), an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Grant (1987), and the Gradiva Award for Best Art from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in in recognition of the psychologically based imagery in her work (1999).
She has had many solo exhibitions at various institutions and galleries, including the Chicago Cultural Art Center; the James Waltrous Gallery in Madison, Wis.; Peltz Gallery in Milwaukee; Artemisia Gallery in Chicago and OS Projects Gallery in Racine. Her work has been included in many group exhibitions at such venues as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Art Center, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The Rockford Art Museum in Illinois, The Evanston Art Center in Illinois, the Heuser Art Center Gallery at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. Her work is in a number of private and public collections including the Rockford Art Museum and the Racine Art Museum.
Levesque maintains a professional artist’s studio in the 16th Street Studios at the Racine Business Center in Racine, WI.
About the curators
Samantha Timm, co-curator
Samantha Timm’s career in the arts began at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin as curatorial assistant for its approximately 23,000 works of art covering diverse historical periods, cultures and geographies. She has also held various positions at art museums in the New York City area, including Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, an internationally renowned art museum devoted to 20th century art, and Winter Antiques Show, a leading art, antiques and design fair featuring experts in the fine and decorative arts. Prior to Saint Kate, Timm was curator for Jewel Spiegel Gallery in Englewood, New Jersey, which holds a collection of old, fine and decorative prints. Her strong background in both art history and contemporary art brought her to Saint Kate as art historian in April 2019 and co-curator with Marcus in October 2020. In addition to her breadth of experience in the arts, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a master’s degree in History of Art from the University of York in York, England.
Frank Juárez, co-curator
Frank Juárez brings two decades of art education and arts management experience organizing local and regional art exhibitions, community art events, facilitating presentations, supporting artists through grant programs, and offering professional development workshops. Frank is in the forefront of promoting Wisconsin artists, as well as attracting regional, national, and international artists to collaborate and exhibit in Wisconsin. Juárez’s projects include Artdose Magazine, 365 Artists 365 Days Project, Midwest Artist Studios Project, and the Indiana Green Invitational.
Juárez is the Sheboygan North High School art department chair, SchoolArts Magazine contributing editor, and Artdose Magazine publisher.
About Levee Contemporary
About Levee Contemporary | leveecontemporaryart.com
A big city gallery in small town Wisconsin. Walking into Levee Contemporary, you could be anywhere in the world. Levee Contemporary is a commercial Gallery and art space located in Princeton, WI. Levee presents a diverse range of Artists and artwork, striking a critical balance between progressive works that challenge its audience and creative content that excites viewers with simple acts of enjoyment and visual stimulation.
About Artdose Magazine
Founded in 2013, Artdose Magazine is an independent print and digital art magazine committed to connecting and supporting the visual arts in Wisconsin. In 2023, it will expand its mission to include Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. Published by Frank Juárez, the magazine is premised on the belief that we all share common goals of introducing, engaging, and offering others diverse art experiences. Artdose appears in print as a bi-annual art magazine, through Artdose Magazine Weekly art e-newsletter, and on Instagram and Facebook. Recently, Artdose Magazine has expanded regionally.
Press Inquiries
Frank Juárez
frankjuarezgallery@gmail.com
For the latest updates on Artdose Magazine, visit artdosemagazine.com or find us on Instagram @artdosemagazine.
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Reception Photos
View past Indiana Green Invitationals (2010-2021)
Featured Artists Since 2010
Pamela Anderson, Cristian Andersson, Shirah Apple, Andrea Avery, Ann Baer, Brandon Bauer, Brianna Lynn Hernández Baurichter, Stephanie Barenz, Reginald Baylor, Erica Becker, Tom Berenz, Siara Berry, Lois Bielefeld, Kendra Bulgrin, Rory Burke, Tony Conrad, Eddee Daniel, Michael Davidson, Rose DiSalvo, Melissa Dorn, L J Douglas, Daniel Fleming, Ray Easley, Emma Freeman, Jenie Gao, Nina Ghanbarzadeh, Kristin Haas, Jon Horvath, Ariana Huggett, Erica Huntzinger, Kay Jelinek, Gary Justis, Shayna Illingworth, Eriks Johnson, Leah Schreiber Johnson, Tonia Klein, David Najib Kasir, Michael Kautzer, Dale Knaak, Tiffany Knopow, John Kowalczyk, Dara Larson, Chelsea Littman, Trent Miller, Brandon Minga, Kevin Miyazaki, Todd Mrozinski, Rob Neilson, Chris Niver, Mary Overman, Kassandra Palmer, Jared Patton Ploch, Kendall Polster, Nirmal Raja, Jeff Redmon, Sara Risley, Darrell Roberts, Rafael Salas, Kate E Schaffer, Nicole Shaver, Christian Sis, SPOOKY Boobs Collective, LaNia Sproles, Renee Staeck, Christine Style, Krista Svalbonas, Becky Tesch, Dean Valadez, Allison Wade, Dave Watkins, Serena Weits, Della Wells, Steve White, Chuck Wickler, Lisa Wicka, Sara Willadsen, Chris Willey, Jayme Harvey Willms, Jessica Zalewski, William Zuback.
Celebrating 10 Years (2013- 2023) 