Journal Sentinel Reviews

The Armoury Gallery and the Green Gallery recently had their current shows reviewed for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Mary Louise Schumacher reviewed both shows for her Art City blog and for the Thursday, September 25th print edition of the Journal. To read the Armoury's review click HERE, and click HERE for the Green Gallery's review. This is what they looked like in print:

In Contour: Fall Gallery Night @ the Armoury Gallery

October 17 - November 15
Opening Reception: Gallery Night, October 17th, 5 - 10pm

The Armoury Gallery is please to announce its fifth exhibition, In Contour, with an opening reception to be held Fall Gallery Night, October 17th from 5-10 pm.

In Contour features the work of Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson and local artists Paul Kjelland and Julia Schilling. All three artists use line, contour and silhouette to deconstruct and analyze the world around us, breaking environments and relationships down to their respective parts.

Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson will present a series of new and old works for the exhibition. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, having earned her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is featured in book 77 of New American Paintings, a juried exhibition-in-print selected from over 1000 applicants.

Peterson works with large scale paper cutouts and drawings, then suspends them and sets the work against painted imagery on the wall behind. The use of silhouette implies a level of simplicity and reduction, but the complex nature of the shapes and repeating patterns, combined with the tedious process, imply a complexity that begs for consideration.

Local artist Paul Kjelland will have a new series of his mixed media, photography-based works on hand. Graduating from MIAD in 2005 with a BFA in photography, Kjelland has since worked consistently, showing with Hotcakes at Aqua Art in Miami and Art Chicago, at Milwaukee International, Walker's PointCenter for the Arts, Luckystar and others.

Kjelland's work takes a compartmentalized look at the constructed world that surrounds us. Using paper cutouts, screen printing and digital media, Kjelland takes apart our surroundings and reassembles them as a course of reflection and examination of the world around us.

Finally, Julia Schilling of the White Whale Collective will create a sight-specific installation for this opening. Julia graduated from MIAD in 2008, earning her BFA in Sculpture and minor in Writing, and has been involved in curating and exhibiting with the White Whale since it was formed this past January. She has also participated in various public art projects, including the collaboration 'Points of View' for the Riverwalk Association.

Schilling's work combines sculpture and drawing to explore landforms and methods of mapping. For this opening, her installation will employ piles, mounds, and words to address landscapes, elevation and way finding.

COOL WHITE CUBE, Paul Druecke @ The Green Gallery

The Cool White Cube
Paul Druecke
Sept. 19th - Oct. 11th

Opening Reception
Sept. 19th
7-11pm
The Green Gallery
631 E Center St. 3rd floor, Milwaukee

The Cool White Cube documents the American refrigerator. The refrigerator has been called the gallery of the masses. Its clean exterior begs aesthetic consideration, while the decorated refrigerator projects a public sensibility from its domestic centrality. The Cool White Cube looks at refrigerators as found in the homes of people from a variety of backgrounds (suburban families, gallerists, film directors, chiropractors, and waiters, to name a few). Simultaneously grand and quaint, this exhibition is Druecke's most direct overlaying of art world structure and quotidian existence.


Also on view during the opening reception:
A new Video Arcade video by Xav Leplae,
Club Nutz stand-up with your hosts Scott & Tyson Reeder,
The John Riepenhoff Experience

visit www.thegreengallery.tk for more info

Hidden River Festival: Emerging Artists

This coming weekend, September 19 - 21, the Hidden River Festival is happening at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield. Some MIGA members are participating in the Emerging Artists section of this event, including Julia Schilling, Summer Said and Marcus Wichmann of the White Whale Collective and Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber of the Armoury Gallery. Peggy Sue Dunigan wrote a short article about the Hidden River Festival in todays Shepherd Express. You can read the full text below, or by clicking HERE.

Please note, that even though it says Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber will be speaking at this event, no actual speaking engagement is scheduled.

Discovering Wisconsin Art
Art Preview By Peggy Sue Dunigan

An extraordinary collection of artists will appear throughout the Milwaukee area this weekend. In Brookfield, the third annual Hidden River Art Festival returns to the grounds of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, from 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, through 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. All weekend, Wisconsin artists will be highlighted in a variety of events at this family festival.


A retrospective on the second floor of the Ploch Art Gallery will feature Wisconsin artists working in multiple media. These 27 commissioned works, honoring the Governor's Award in Support of the Arts, will be exhibited for the first time, and include work from artists such as Doug Haynes, Chuck Beckwith and Phillip Odden.

Inside the Wilson Center's Dawes Studio Theater, "Emerging Artists from Wisconsin" will showcase artists who have graduated from prestigious fine-arts programs in the state. This creative vision aims to provide rising artists with an opportunity to show their artwork to fresh audiences. Partners involved with the White Whale Artist Collective, including Summer Said, Julia Schilling and Marcus Wichmann, as well as Armoury Gallery's Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber, will display their talents. On Friday afternoon, Steeber and Smith will talk about being working women, artists and gallery owners, and will speak about the dedication necessary to accomplish the task of being a creative artist and an entrepreneur in today's economic environment. A number of other emerging artists will speak at scheduled times during the festival.

Two familiar galleries import their collections of fine art to the Wilson Center's Grand Hall, while refreshments, entertainment and an activities tent outside will allow participants to discover art on a personal level. A People's Choice Award and two juried awards, Best in Show and Juror's Choice, are set to honor more than 80 Wisconsin artists. With an admission fee of $5 for adults (free for children under 10), Hidden River Art Festival provides an opportunity to explore the inside world of Wisconsin art.

The Westside Artwalk in Wauwatosa stretches from Harwood Avenue to 43rd and Vliet streets. Participating businesses exhibit unique artwork, and there will be a fund-raiser titled "Take A Seat," which will auction imaginative Adirondack chairs to benefit the reclamation of the village common area. This two-day event, on Friday, Sept. 19, 5 to 9 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., offers a creative atmosphere in which to appreciate these Milwaukee neighborhoods.

White Whale Artist Collective in Walker's Point hosts an exclusive exhibition, "Gimme Baby Robots," on Friday, Sept. 19, from 7 to 10 p.m. This traveling art collective, the brainchild of two University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate art students, Mike Rea and Dave Teng Olsen, assembles the work of more than 100 national artists. "Gimme Baby Robots" travels through numerous U.S. cities, offering affordable art shown salon-style. In addition to an auction, light refreshments will be served.

Baby Robots at the White Whale

Hello all,
On Friday September 19th The White Whale is happy to host the artist collaborative, "Gimme Baby Robots." For one night only come and get some great art at affordable prices. This silent auction event will feature artists from around the country with their work starting at bids as low as one dollar. The Baby Robots have traveled to cities around the United States from Los Angeles to Chicago and for their final stop of the year they're dropping by the White Whale. You can learn more about Gimme Baby Robots at their website, http://gbr.siamesebirds.com.

Time: 7pm -10pm Friday the 19th
Place: 835 W National

Hope to see you there!