Above the Historic Third Ward Starbucks on Water Street, Cedar Gallery provides an exhibition curated by former gallery owners Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith in “Armoury @ The Cedar Gallery.” An intriguing sextet represents the new artistic guard, with these individuals studying at or recently graduating from Wisconsin colleges.
Karin Haas (MIAD, 2008) and James LaLonde create more than 500 miniature zebras that cascade over a gallery wall onto the floor—“a simple, satisfying installation that combines art and happiness.” Ginger Lukas (UW-Madison, future MFA) brings her prestigious résumé to the oversized mixed-media installation Pursuit of Happiness. This circle of colored porch swings ornamented with bold, shiny decorations reinforces the idea that “all that’s gold doesn’t glitter.”
Kevin Giese (UW-Milwaukee, MFA, 2007) hollows out 20 feet of ash wood and then fills the sinuous horizontal column with river quartz crystals in his wall sculpture Original River.Katie Kraft (MIAD, 2008) paints small acrylics representing chance and skill in her series showcasing billiards. On another wall, Sophia Flood’s (UW-Madison, future MFA) Viewfinder Series mounts small collages fashioned from the grids of actual graph paper to present fleeting moments in life.
The entire collection at Cedar Gallery offers a glimpse of the future in these exceptional artists.
Elaine Erickson Gallery hosts “Residua,” a dual exhibition with Erica Spitzer Rasmussen and Allison B. Cooke featuring three- and two-dimensional art.
Rasmussen constructs mythological garments in various sizes and paper books that pay homage to women, often relating to issues in fertility and motherhood. Cooke references classical notes and the ancient wall frescos discovered in Pompeii with several series, one of which includes the oil on canvas Pompeii Garden.Her other images use an encaustic process where pigment may be mixed with melted wax to form a textural painting that belies age and captures the imagination.
Further west, Marian Art Gallery on the campus of Mount Mary College offers “2 Cameras: Photographic Exhibition by Byron Becker and Suzanne Garr.” Becker and Garr’s prints depict familiar secluded landscapes and colorful foreign portraits.
Becker’s silver gelatin photographs pay tribute to nature in the Upper Michigan Peninsula, Canadian Boundary Waters and Saskatchewan. Garr’s camera uncovers the otherworldly and creates wonder in scenes of Bhutan, Nepal, and Thailand. In her Umbrella Series,prints captured from a Bor Sang umbrella factory in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Garr perceives the power released from the hands that make these exotic umbrellas.
