Lauren Marie Nitka
The new year in Milwaukee has started off with much snow and frigid temperatures. Yet despite the weather, Gallery Night MKE was sure to be packed with exhibition openings, studio visits, and a mix of established and new artists on the scene. Joining me for Friday, January 19th would be fellow oil painter and occasional collaborator, AJ Jassar of Jassar Brush.
Jassar and I headed straight for the warmth of the Marshall Building on the corner of Water and Buffalo Street. The Marshall Building, a former warehouse built in 1906, now with seven floors full of art galleries, would be our shelter from the cold and our hub for the night.
On the first floor, we began in Oil – A City Gallery that is consistently a favorite of ours to browse. Directly when entering the space, newly displayed paintings of inconspicuous intersections at dusk grabbed our attention. For Jassar and me, being from Milwaukee, we immediately recognized each intersection painted by Charlie Irmiger. The yellow street lights, the dramatic shadows, the small details of plants, fences, and street signs pulled us both back to our own memories of these places. His paintings reminded me of when I was a child looking out the window at night as my parents drove us home from Brewers games. These paintings set the tone for the evening – something for the viewers and the artists to connect through, something distinctly Milwaukee.
Next to Oil we stopped at Aquae Nguvu to see the show “Wisdom in Myth”. Karina Polasky’s ink drawings of European folklore required a closer look. Each piece told a story in black ink and crosshatching of a different mythical creature, with a caption describing the creature and associated folktale. But we had to continue on before the clock struck nine!
Taking the elevator up to the top floor, we entered a space I was quite familiar with – Material Studios + Gallery. Having been a renting artist there back in 2017-2019, I am partial to the space’s setup. Not only do artists display their work on walls in the entrance or above their rented space, but many also work out of their studios there. It provides a unique opportunity to see artists at work, the ways they design their spaces, and their most recent works of art.
Passing by my old studio space, we went up the stairs to the loft. Here among brightly colored collages by the artist Therese, felt fabric mixed media hearts caught my eye – as did the name of the artist! Jean Berens, a friend of Therese, was a former art teacher who had overseen some clinical hours of mine in undergrad when I was studying to become an art teacher. Leaving with a small piece of Berens’, Jassar and I headed down to visit the studio of Deborah Brooks.
Brooks has been a favorite artist of mine over the past couple of years – her studio is always full of visitors on Gallery Nights. I was honored to feature some of her work in a pop up show I organized last year. She excitedly shared new work and explorations. Brooks had recently traveled throughout the country of Morocco, and came back to capture the colors she had seen on her journeys in new paintings. But she was exploring beyond her traditional canvas, utilizing a vintage sewing machine to create sewn sculptures from painted materials, and creating color blocks with house paint on poster size paper. These insights behind the scenes of the artist had me longing to be in my studio exploring as well!
Adjacent to Brooks’ studio is the space of May Klisch. Klisch’s work explored a variety of still life and interior spaces. Her interiors felt both lonely and peaceful at the same time, cool colors with broad brushstrokes that form the essence of elegant furnishings.
Leaving the collective space of Material, we passed through Lois Buley Wirth’s gallery of soft watercolors hung against Cream City brick. An experienced artist, she shared the advice a professor had given her: “if you want to grow as an artist, change your medium,” which led her to explore watercolors. We thanked her for her time, and took the old warehouse’s stairs down to the main attraction of the night: Nirmal Raja’s Grace and Grit exhibition opening at The Portrait Society.
However, just before Raja’s show, a small but bright studio caught our eye. With just two paintings on opposite walls, this was the cleanest art studio I have ever seen. Monica Bachüé utilizes painting as a way to heal from her extensive reconstruction surgeries for a cleft lip. Her black and white paintings with soft taupe and liquid graphite were part of a consistent color scheme we’d see on this floor.
Nirmal Raja’s show was full of people eager to see her and her work. The gallery walls were newly painted soft gray, and her pieces included metal castings of fibers and neutral abstract paintings. Raja had recently completed a residency with the Kohler Arts/Industry Program, where she explored casting processes in their foundry. She captured threads, purses, bags, and braided hair in cast bronze and brass. Her sculptural subjects explored global feminine struggle and resilience, juxtaposed by the masculine materials from the factory. The wall of braided hair reminded me of my mother braiding my hair for Polish folk dance performances. The large braids are a temporary style for hair, now permanently captured in metal.
Jassar and I ended the night in Pamela Anderson’s studio. A former Pfister Residency artist, Anderson’s work is well established in Milwaukee. We also got to connect with Steven Kaishian, the creator of Infrastructure Canvas, and Anderson’s husband. He was inspired by his wife’s painting techniques and needs for a more stable canvas. As we spent the remainder of the evening admiring Anderson’s studio space, exploring options with Kashian for future projects, time flew by and it was soon closing time.
The Marshall Building quickly emptied as artists and art admirers hopped over piles of snow and ran to the warmth of their cars. Until next time, Gallery Night MKE!