The exhibit, juriedby Martha Glowacki (James Watrous Gallery) and Graeme Reid (Museum of Wisconsin Art),presents a remarkable variety of artwork selected from some 300 entries. As awhole, the exhibit displays a substantial overview of the expert abilities of Wisconsin artists.
Linda WerveyVitamvas earned the Friends of Charles Allis’ Grand Prize for her sensualceramics. Trotula of Salerno recallsan ancient female physician who wrote a remarkable text on women’s health.Vitamvas uses sgraffito to apply the text on ebony matte porcelain, the wordsshaped to the delicate curves in her trio of bowls. Sexual Politics poses white and black chess pieces, resembling maleand female anatomical parts, opposite each other and neatly lined on eitherside of a medical traya nod to gender struggles. Vitamvas’ progressive ceramic art is asurprising choice for top prize from the classical Charles Allis.
Michael Banning’stributes to Milwaukee industry, a pair ofhyper-realistic oil on panels featuring the Menomonee River Valley, earned one of twoAwards for Excellence. The other winner, Christian Ricco, presented Last Light and Lagoon, two monotypes that cast abstract reflections and mirrorimages in charcoal, ivory and sepia. These tiny shoreline landscapes offer astudy in tranquility and transcendence.
The Margaret RahillMemorial Award went to Michael Foster for his painting of a young womansurrounded by atmospheric darkness. Portraiture finds fresh application in thisfragmented canvas that creates auras of mysterious emotion.
Craig Blietz’s Pastoral Dreaming, an interesting oilpainting expressing industrialization, earned Director’s Choice honors.Compartmentalized on one side of the canvas, a ghostly white bovine ensconcedin darkness contrasts with the other half, where a stark landscape portraysother cows grazing comfortably. This expertly rendered dichotomy perhapsalludes to past and present economic conditions in farm production.
Alison Stehlikreceived Honorable Mention for her mixed-media sculpture, and Jon Raleigh’sintaglio print won the Viewer’s Choice Award. Two other artworks exhibited onthe second floor deserve mention as well. Michael Santini’s A Chef Examining the Final Details for HisPresentation is an exquisite and witty graphite drawing of a chef,half-animal and half-human, displaying a surrealistic arrangement of culinaryobjects. Altogether different, Gary Gresl’s ThreeHours Before Flight creates an out-of-body experience with digitallyaltered photography. His eerie pair of prints prepares one for a journey to theafterlife.
Though some mediumsremain absent from the exhibition, most notably contemporary collage,installation, jewelry, large mixed media and video art, the Charles Allis stillprovides an exemplary range of more traditional Wisconsin art. “Forward: ASurvey of Wisconsin Art Now” continues through May 19.
