Photo via Museum of Wisconsin Art
Chad Alexander Matha - 'We Grew Flowers in the Baseball Diamond (detail)'
Chad Alexander Matha, 'We Grew Flowers in the Baseball Diamond (detail)', 2024
Art can be many things, but it most often serves as an interpretive communication between the artist and audience, seeking to create an understanding that in the best cases leads to increased enlightenment for both parties.
Milwaukee artist Chad Alexander Matha takes that interpretation a step further with his found-object sculpture, addressing the visual needs of multicultural societies, some of which he himself was part of during his upbringing in Sheboygan. The net result is a creative approach and repurposing of familiar household goods designed to provide sparks of recognition and emotional touchstones to a wide array of viewers.
“For me, recognition leads to connection,” says Matha. “I grew up in working-class blue-collar family and when I am working with found objects there is a certain excitement for me in those familiar materials. Someone without art experience can view my work and enjoy the art I’ve created.”
First Solo Exhibit
The 27-year-old artist’s first solo exhibition, “Everything to Build With,” opened Dec. 5 at MOWA / DTN, the downtown Milwaukee satellite gallery of the Museum of Wisconsin Art located in Saint Kate–The Arts Hotel. The 25-piece exhibit will be on display through March 1, 2026.
Matha is a relative newcomer to his brand of sculpture. He started out intent on performing in musical theater, but he got cold feet before entering a university theatrical program. He was waiting tables at a Sheboygan restaurant when his interests turned to two-dimensional art. A gallery show at Jake’s Café in Sheboygan gave him the boost he needed to pursue art on a full-time basis and, eventually, move to Milwaukee.
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“I was attracted to being part of a world that didn’t rely on large groups of people to make art,” Matha says. The artist is not alone in his found-object approach, according to MOWA’s Thomas Szolwinski, who curated the exhibit.
“Matha’s approach to artmaking builds on the legacy of early 20th-century artists who explored the boundary between art and life by incorporating everyday objects into mixed-media assemblages,” Szolwinski says. “What once challenged long-standing artistic canons—such as oil painting and figural sculpture—now becomes, in Matha’s hands, a celebration of the inherent beauty and expressive potential of ordinary materials.”
Repurposed Materials
Indeed, the name of the exhibit itself—“Everything to Build With”—was lifted from the side of a repurposed wooden yardstick, at one time the marketing messages for a lumber yard or hardware store, and acquired, no doubt, through Matha’s many years of scouring resale shops, thrift stores and salvage sites for materials. The 25 pieces in the show, in addition to sculpture, also includes quilted pieces, leatherworks and a few two-dimensional collages. In addition to capitalizing on the raw materials’ original purposes, Matha draw on his own cultural heritage—his father is a member of the Ho Chunk Nation and his mother is Italian—to add unique cultural flavors to his art.
“Matha’s art references personal history and employs techniques such as sewing and traditional Ho-Chunk basket weaving learned from his grandmother,” Szolwinski explains. “Together with his distinctive material and color palette, these methods form a singular artistic vision. His work engages viewers through a dramatic range of scale, from a few inches to the size of the back of a semi-truck.”
Matha’s primary interest, he says, is to connect with as many viewers as possible, whether through the original source materials or artistic technique. In a very unique way. he succeeds on all levels.
“My dad couldn’t tell you who painted [Vincent Van Gogh’s] The Starry Night, but when he sees a piece of driftwood, a handsaw, and some trinkets combined into one piece there is a resonance of meaning and repurposing that offers something that all people can relate to.”
Chad Alexander Matha’s exhibit “Everything to Build With” will be on display through March 1, 2026, at the MOWA/DTN gallery in Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel, 239 E. Kilbourn Ave, in downtown Milwaukee.
