Erica Jane Huntzinger at Sugar Maple

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Photo via The Sugar Maple

Painting by Erica Jane Huntzinger

by Erica Jane Huntzinger

Often, the most difficult thing about reviewing art in Milwaukee is actually finding the shows. Not shows at the museums of course, but those in the countless alternative spaces and irregular venues around the city. But this also makes local art viewing a gloriously exciting treasure hunt. Case in point is a show I stumbled into on a quick tip last week that had me loving my industrious and talented art community more than ever.

When one thinks of Sugar Maple, a craft spirits and beer bar on Lincoln Avenue in Bay View, they will think first about what Milwaukee specializes in: booze and bubbles. However, the social meeting spot also operates a surprisingly impressive art program on the side. The great Indie LaLonde had a magnificent show there last year that left-fielded me as well. So when someone told me Sheboygan-based painter Erica Jane Huntzinger was presenting a body of work on its walls—after I wondered how I didn’t hear about it until the last second—I rearranged my schedule to stop by the opening of her show that will be on view through the summer.

After grinding through enough sanitized, white-walled art sanctuaries, walking into a dimly lit bar on the brink of a busy evening to see art proved to be as refreshing as the hazy pale ale that accompanied me. In one sense, Huntzinger’s work fits the profile of the space perfectly: it is loose, unfussy, kinetic and improvisational. It’s also breezy and approachable. Immediately, a large painting teeming with dark jabbing forms circling and advancing around a washy pale blue center coaxed me onto a bench for a closer look, drawing the eyes of a few early drinkers. Its vertical dashes of milky wash run interference with starry yellow gnarls of paint closer to the surface of the work, coiling the whole knot of churning activity into a unified, spring-loaded composition. It’s a fantastic painting, though a bit of an outlier in the group.

Warmer Palette

The other works in the show separate themselves from it chromatically and compositionally. They’re of a warmer palette with a slightly different vocabulary. In the Public, appropriately titled and representative of a group of the August series works is a sparser painting—similar to a number of others nearby—playing more with drawing and figure ground possibilities. It too is large, 48 x 30 inches, and abstract, but with a glowing orange monochromatic belly, umbery object anchoring top center, and thatch of scribbley marks at the lower left that take on an almost performative quality. A dazzling horizontally oriented work by the door entitled Let Yourself Be bridges the gap between Huntzinger’s two painting impulses, announcing itself as both a gorgeous abstract landscape at the edge of a sunset, and as an extended opportunity for the artist to indulge in the seductions of a fast, wet brush across widening space. Just for its own sake. 

In its raw and kinetic openness, Huntzinger’s work complements the bustle of the public watering hole perfectly. Buoyant, welcoming, and active. But it also makes one want to see that same work wallflowering against a white wall somewhere quiet and separate. This is the Yin-and-Yang brilliance of art; it can complement any dimension of experience with a contextual jerk of its hips. And I have a good feeling you’ll have the chance to see these fizzy paintings shifting their weight in a non-tavern context soon enough.

Event Listings: August 18-August 24

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Sunday, August 18, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA)

• Art and Chalk Fest
• Sunday, August 18, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Jackson Park

• Red Magic Art Festival
• Sunday, August 18, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

MARN Art+Culture Hub

• Uptown Society - Creative Connections
• Sunday, August 18, 12–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Unveiling Celebration: Mural by ArtXpress Teen Interns
• Sunday, August 18, 12:30–3:30 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Sunday, August 18, 2–3 p.m.

Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum

• Work from Home Wednesday: coworking session at the Villa
• Wednesday, August 21, 12–3 p.m.

Bradford Beach

• Art Blaze on the Beach, sponsored by Joy Engine
• Wednesday, August 21, 3–10 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Thursday Nights at MAM
• Thursday, August 22, 4–8 p.m.

MIAD in the Ave.

• Opening Reception, “It’s Safe to Cry Here”
• Friday, August 23, 5–8 p.m.

House of Rad

• House of Rad Grill’R
• Friday, August 23, 5:30 p.m.

Tooth and Nail Studio

• Opening Reception for Strange Touch
• Friday, August 23, 6–9 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Saturday, August 24, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Story Time in the Galleries
• Satuday, August 24, 10:30–11 a.m.

Cedarburg Art Museum

• Opening Reception: “Six Impressions” and “My Friend: Doris White”
• Saturday, August 24, 1–3 p.m.

Charles Allis Museum of Art

• Story Time at the Allis
• Saturday, August 24, 1–3 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Saturday, August 24, 2–3 p.m.

Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel

• AIR Time, Art & Studio Tour with AIR Anwar Floyd-Pruitt
• Saturday, August 24, 6:30 p.m.

MARN Art+Culture Hub

• The City of Benedict della Crosse
• Saturday, August 24, 4–8 p.m.