Feature image: Lois Bielefeld, Front Window.
Exhibition on view in downtown Sturgeon Bay August 1–31, featuring portraits, house studies, and video works exploring memory, ritual, and family
Submitted
Sturgeon Bay, WI – The Miller Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of its latest exhibition in the 12 x 12 Project, which features Milwaukee-based multimedia artist Lois Bielefeld. The exhibition will be on view in downtown Sturgeon Bay from August 1 through August 31. The public is invited to attend an Artist Talk with the artist on Saturday, August 1 at 4 pm. A public reception will follow the talk and is free and open to the public.
Featured in Lois Bielefeld | 12 x 12 Project is a portion of their ongoing series, To Commit to Memory. Developed over the past several years, the work centers on Bielefeld’s parents and the home that has shaped their shared history. It began with a recurring morning ritual: the artist’s mother, an Evangelical Christian, reciting passages of Scripture from memory while holding a plank position. Rather than treating the gesture as an anecdote, Bielefeld approaches it as a system of meaning through which belief is practiced, embodied, and carried forward—tracing how memory resides not only in recollection, but in the body, the home, and the repeated actions that organize everyday life.
Through portraits and house studies on view in the exhibition, along with video works accessible via QR codes, Bielefeld approaches family not as autobiography but as a site of investigation. Domestic artifacts and lived spaces function as interconnected forms of evidence, raising questions about how photographs participate in constructing memory rather than simply preserving it.
Collaboration is central to the project. The portraits—carefully orchestrated reenactments of lived experiences—are built through negotiation between artist and subject. Rather than resolving difference, the work occupies the space where opposing beliefs continue to coexist within a shared act of making. As Bielefeld’s parents age and caregiving becomes part of the exchange, the project gains an added dimension without shifting its central inquiry: time becomes visible, and looking is transformed from passive observation into an act of presence.
As photographer Robert Adams has observed, art helps us discover the significance of things—a proposition Bielefeld embraces throughout the project, attending to what ordinarily escapes notice until the familiar reveals broader cultural and emotional frameworks. Ultimately, To Commit to Memory asks viewers not simply to witness one family’s history, but to recognize the patterns that shape their own.
About the Artist
Lois Bielefeld (b. 1978) is a Milwaukee-based multimedia artist whose practice examines the social and psychological structures embedded within everyday life. Working through extended, research-driven projects, they employ photography, moving image, sound, installation, and publication to investigate how identity is constructed through ritual, labor, place, memory, and interpersonal exchange. Collaboration is central to their methodology, positioning the photographic image not as an objective record but as a site where observation, performance, and lived experience converge.
Rather than treating domestic space as subject matter, Bielefeld considers it a framework through which larger cultural questions emerge. Their projects often evolve over months or years, allowing repetition, duration, and sustained engagement to become integral to the work itself. Familiar environments, ordinary gestures, and shared routines are approached as systems of meaning, revealing the ways individuals navigate and define family, faith, belonging, gender, and the social expectations that shape contemporary experience.
Bielefeld received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photographic Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Their work has been presented nationally at institutions including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Wisconsin Art, International Center of Photography, and de Young Museum.
Bielefeld’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Wisconsin Art, and Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, among other public and private collections. Additional recognition includes the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship, the Gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix Grant, Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50, and residencies at ACRE, Ox-Bow School of Art, and Bourglinster, Luxembourg.
Exhibition Details
The exhibition will be on display in Gallery 3 on the Ruth Morton Miller Mezzanine in downtown Sturgeon Bay through August 31, 2026. The museum is located at 107 S. 4th Avenue, Sturgeon Bay, WI, 54235, inside the Door County Library in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. For information, call 920.746.0707 or visit the museum on Instagram at @MillerArtMuseum or Facebook at Miller Art Museum.
About the Miller Art Museum
Nestled in the heart of downtown Sturgeon Bay, the Miller Art Museum stands as a beacon of cultural enrichment and artistic exploration. Established in 1975, this dynamic institution has been a cornerstone of the local community, fostering creativity and appreciation for the visual arts. With a diverse collection of more than 1,500 works spanning historical to contemporary, along with regularly changing exhibitions, visitors are treated to a compelling and diverse array of art. From powerful exhibitions highlighting regional and national talent to thought-provoking exhibits that explore the depths, joys, and complexities of our world, the museum offers something for art enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds. Beyond its exhibits, the Museum presents an array of educational programs, tours, performances, and events, engaging visitors in experiences that deepen their understanding and appreciation for art. With a commitment to excellence and accessibility, the Miller Art Museum continues to foster connections between artists and community through the creation of opportunities to explore, appreciate, and advance the visual arts.