This year is the twelfth installment of the Nohl Fellowship exhibition, a showcase for seven emerging and established artists who received grants made possible by the generosity of the late artist Mary L. Nohl. On view at INOVA are the fruits of their labor over the past year, reflecting a spectrum of creative arts weighted heavily toward technology.
The group Special Entertainment offer the results of their project, Hamlet A.D.D. Visitors may join in by donning costumes and picturing themselves in front of an alternately medieval and space age-styled set. Josh Weissbach’s films combine audio and morphing abstractions. Though inspired by domestic environments, his work is often an esoteric sensory experience. Cris Siqueira, also a filmmaker, presents part of her Ape Girl project, based on carnival sideshow extravaganzas and the transformation of one being into another, in this case, the metamorphosis of a woman into an ape.
Eddie Villanueva experiments with the physical environment in Pyne Camp. The gallery is enveloped in low light, illuminated by camping tents where strange shadows and sounds dance on walls decorated with dark, amorphous prints. The notion of enveloping the viewer is also apparent in Ray Chi’s thin, multicolored tubular forms. They wind through space like a three-dimensional drawing, an invitation for playful meandering. Tim Stoelting similarly takes on unconventional materials, transposing one thing for another. Bricks are made from aluminum, and a wall of what ordinarily would be made from wood is cast in concrete.
The most static of pieces are created thread by thread by artist Shelia Held, who composes views of brilliantly colored, vibrant landscapes and urban settings in tapestry form. With a meticulous sense of craft and detail, she presents a selection of pieces from her Homo Ludens series. It is an exploration of modern culture and recreation in vibrant, sometimes apocalyptic form.
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The recipients of the Nohl Fellowships are typically chosen from outside the Milwaukee art community, coming to the local creative scene with fresh eyes. The artists and works they have drawn out reveal a predilection for playful, inventive and technologically complex art.
“The Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fellowships for Individual Artists” continues through Jan. 11 at INOVA, 2155 N. Prospect Ave.
