Depending on how the crow flies, Horicon Marsh is about 24 miles west of West Bend’s Museum of Wisconsin Art. It’s alive with freshwater cattails and finned, feathered and furry things both beautiful and not. Homo sapiens hang there too, for instance, artist and UW-Madison professor Fred Stonehouse, whose home is in nearby Slinger. Hear tell, his home base/studio is also in a marshy area.
Stonehouse is heavily tattooed, rides a Harley and, hey, that would seem to make him a regular Wisconsin guy, albeit one attracted to the problematic space between heaven and hell. His multiple works on display at the Museum of Wisconsin Art exhibition “The Promise of Distant Things” include drawings that astound and frequently feature a guy resembling the artist himself. Here’s one with tears flowing down a whiskered face, but hold it, those tears are coming from somewhere above. Is Heaven weeping for humanity gone awry?
I’d be amiss to say his work is “fun,” for that would miss the point. After all, Satan can be a charming host, but not as charming as Stonehouse, a trickster disguised as a regular guy who rides a Harley.
OK, so perhaps there is a dab of fun in his work, but it’s creepy fun. Jump right in and opt for a temporary tattoo, but beware, for, like life, it comes with no guarantees as to how long it will last. However, this exhibition is guaranteed to last through Jan. 17, 2016. Graeme Reid, the museum’s energetic director of collections and exhibitions, continues to bring MOWA viewers exciting and intellectually challenging choices. “The Promise of Distant Things” is certainly among the best to date. There is an edgy quality to Reid’s choices, one that sharpens our senses, and that’s a good thing as we swing into 2016.
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