2024 EXHIBITIONS
ABUNDANCE
THROUGH THE LENS OF BLACK WOMEN
February 2nd - April 7th
At Var Gallery on 2nd
Abundance: through the Lens of Black Women brings together a diverse selection of talented Midwestern Black women photographers, each offering a powerful and evocative exploration of abundance in various forms. Through their lenses, these artists capture the richness of experience, resilience, joy, and beauty that define the lives of Black women.
The exhibition features works by the following esteemed artists:
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Keisha Davis
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Nadeena Granville
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Kiara Jacobs
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Cheyenne Jordan
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Monjoa Likine
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Shanoaleigh Marson
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Glenda Mitchell
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Isioma Okoro-Osademe
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Melonie Wright
Var Gallery invites the community to join us on the opening night, February 2nd, 2024, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm, for an evening of art, conversation, and celebration. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the artists, gain insight into their creative processes, and appreciate the unique perspectives presented in Abundance: through the Lens of Black Women.
Gaining Visuals is a media production company located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Gaining Visuals provides videography, photography and brand strategy services, in addition hosts workshops to teach startups and small businesses how to grow their brand. The company was founded by Nadeena Granville in 2018 and you can learn more at gainingvisuals.com or email info@gainingvisuals.com for additional information.
GM.Creative Photography was founded in Milwaukee by Glenda Mitchell in 2021 specializing in lifestyle portrait photography. Glenda’s work aims to capture memories and highlight the differences that make people shine using photography to recognize the beauty in every “other” person. Learn more at gmcreativephoto.com or email info@gmcreative.com for additional information.
VAR GALLERY
5TH STREET
CAPITOL V
NIKI JOHNSON
July 12th - September 29th 2024
July 12th - September 29th
At Var Gallery on 2nd
"Our nation is born through our bodies, so how and when this nation is built is ours to decide. Decisions about access to abortion, birth control, hormone therapy, and IVF have no place in the state house. Our physical autonomy, identity, and personal freedoms are fundamental human rights.
Humor and joy are important activities in maintaining resilience. Vajazzle, as a form of sexual fetishism and a visual language, is inherently playful and irreverent. When packed densely together the crystals can appear armor-like — protective, yet celebratory. There is power in privacy and self-exploration, and healthy sexual expression should empower whomever is involved. In Capitol V, vajazzle becomes a symbol for freedom.
During the nine years I worked on this series, active erosion of federal protections for abortion led to the overturning of Roe, placing state governments in control of the very bodies that birth this nation. Returning to this project over the years has involved connecting with each state and thinking of the people I love living there as bizarre and restrictive state laws become part of their lives.
The series includes renderings of all 50 state capitol buildings as well as the capitol buildings of six inhabited US territories, patterned out of Swarovski Crystal. The portraits are scaled to one-tenth the height of the actual capitol buildings and hold between 150 and 2,800 crystals per pattern — nearly 60,000 crystals glimmering together. An embedded clitoris at the base of each of the capitol steps feminizes these often-domed capitol buildings, situating equity and pleasure in the halls of power.
The artworks are framed in layered shadow boxes, with each vajazzle appearing to float over an mage of a “virgin” landscape. These landscapes capture the natural beauty of each state and territory. The interplay of the structured patterns and the landscape images creates a dialogue between the manicured and the untamed, the governed and the wild. All images were scanned from postcards within the public domain from the Picture Collection at the New York City Public Library Main Branch.
I feel it is imperative in this moment to draw focus to the layered relationships our bodies have with both federal and state governments. It inspired my choice to open this exhibition on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. I created Capitol V to draw focus to the negotiation of power between women’s bodies and state governments across our nation. It exists as a reminder that it is we who hold the power.
My body. My nation. My vote."
Niki Johnson is a Milwaukee based Artist, Curator and Executive Director of Forward Art Initiative. Raised in New Mexico, Johnson has spent her adult life living across the United States, including five-year stints in San Francisco, California, and Memphis, Tennessee. She received her BFA from the University of Memphis and MA/MFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Studio Art. For the past decade, Johnson has run her studio full-time, exhibiting her art and curating local and national exhibitions. Her artwork is in several private and public collections including the collection of Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell, the collection of Ken and Melinda Krei, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Madison Central Public Library, UW-Health’s American Center Hospital and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Reviews of Johnson’s artwork have been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, and Vice Magazine, amongst other national and international media sources.
“I make art addressing issues of identity and equity to challenge structural power systems affecting our lives today. As a feminist, I am invested in creating art that provides opportunity for viewers to reflect on their lived experiences, and hopefully reignite personal commitments to building a better, more just future. I am more keenly aware now more than ever of how fragile my personal freedom is, especially in light of the rise of fascism and conservative religious doctrine in public spaces across the United States. My vantage point is that of a person who sees herself as a full member in American society, who’s physical autonomy, identity and personal freedom are not up for debate. Through my art, I process both the disenchantment I have and hope I hold for this nation. I see art as my teacher and my voice. Most of the art I make is comprised of hundreds, if not thousands of pieces, and takes tens if not hundreds of hours to complete. I see each artwork as an evolution in thought, and the time when making as essential for a full synthesis of both the concept and material to happen. I build meaning in my work by combining my intention with the associated cultural values of the materials. Because I work with a wide array of (often found) materials, I regularly am scaffolding upon my training in sculpture and printmaking to learn new technologies to create my work.”
DESPITE ALL MY RAGE
LINDSEY YEAGER
May 11th - June 28th
At Var Gallery on 5th
In “Despite All My Rage”, Lindsey Yeager takes her hard-edge, illustrative paintings to a new level and offers personal reflections on grief, dealing with change, and the need for connection considering the chaos of the natural world.
Drawing on her background as an illustrator, Yeager’s works are highly metaphorical. Symbols of medieval weapons and Midwestern barn quilts reference the conditions which often frame the central scene and provide questions on how to survive with and against each other. An excerpt from Yeager’s artist statement complements the narrative paintings:
“The domestic world isn’t made for me, much in the same way that a highway bisects a migratory corridor, threatened in ways I don’t even understand. I saw a Dodge Charger smoke a deer so hard that one of her legs came off her body, her friends overlooking the scene from afar. She waits for the dermestids and spores and crows to return her, bit by bit, back to the earth. I’m her and I’m her companions and I’m the surrounding grass and the pavement and I might also be the guy in the car. Do fungi experience rich inner lives? Their baseline fear level is probably better than a deer’s but they probably do somehow feel the faceted turmoil of being alive. I simultaneously know a devastating amount and nothing at all.”
The work is deeply personal, but it is not individualistic. Yeager reaches for connection and takes care to see our interdependence. When one seed may stem into a bold and beautiful bloom, its roots reach back and intertwine with a neighboring seedling. But when carelessness creeps in, one seed may start to grow, wrap its stem around another and result in a chokehold.
While despair may be omnipresent and all consuming, “Despite All My Rage” affirms that it’s okay. Yeager permits the tough reality of her present moment, allows the depth of raw emotions to take over, and in doing so turns to welcome the desire for a slow, peaceful future – a future where the constant threat of what’s to come is replaced by great gentleness for what is. A future where our collective decay can be embraced and felt together in earnest.
Fueled by a need to find closure in a deteriorating world, Wisconsin-born Colorado transplant Lindsey Yeager paints and illustrates connections between society and nature, between human and animal, translating and reframing human contexts into fearful, raw, and feral allegories. Lindsey received a BFA in New Studio Practice and Illustration from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2021 and she went on to win two Society of Illustrators awards and participate in the 2021-22 cycle of Plum Blossom Initiative’s Bridge Work residency. Her work has been shown at Var Gallery in Milwaukee, WI, Mana Contemporary in Chicago, IL, Soft Times Gallery in San Francisco, CA, Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, WI, and Society of Illustrators in Manhattan, NY, among others. She has taught at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh, and Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
NOW IS THE TIME
SARAH BLOOD
July 6th - Sep. 1st
At Var Gallery on 5th
Var Gallery is excited to announce the opening of “Now Is The Time”, a solo exhibition of works from Sarah Blood at Var’s 5th Street location. Born in the UK, Sarah Blood is an artist, independent curator, and educator. She has enjoyed an active studio practice since 1999, exhibiting her work internationally alongside contemporary artists, including Bruce Nauman, Agnes Denes, Glenn Ligon, Sarah Lucas, and Tracy Emin.
Blood’s practice is concerned with light and phenomenology. She plays with the tension between material, form or object, and space. Light, often neon, is enriched by a counterpoint with conceptual, physical, and visual weight.
“When I talk about light, I also talk about its absence. Light gives us colour, warmth, and life, but we cannot perceive form, texture, and depth without shadows. I used to think that light was everything, but light in isolation is nothing; we must also know the dark to understand our world.”
Blood uses beauty to draw the viewer into the work, often employing metaphor or humour as an entry point. At first look, pieces can appear purely whimsical, a celebration of light and form, a joyful experience. With time and exploration, social and political themes are revealed. Current research explores themes of invisibility, structures of power and inequitable systems. The resulting works explore light, sound and movement using contemporary and obsolete technologies with traditional and non-traditional art-making materials to create object-based sculpture, performative interventions, video and immersive experiences.
Blood is currently Associate Professor of Light in the Sculpture Dimensional Studies Program at Alfred University, New York, where she has been teaching since 2013.
MY AFRO'S FUTURE
REGINALD BAYLOR
Sep. 14th - Nov. 17th
At Var Gallery on 5th
The Reginald Baylor Studio’s (RBS) approach to making art is to create an aesthetic that sparks conversation and ignites the imagination. RBS believe that art is a tool for understanding, and we strive to create work that is celebrated and builds community.
The exhibition title ”My Afro’s Future”” is an invitation to explore the boundaries between creation and deconstruction, between the whole and its parts. This exhibition is a testament to the Studio’s inclusion of machine fabrication and its ability to infuse cold, calculated processes with a sense of organic beauty and emotional depth.
Whether through intricate patterns, bold geometries, or subtle textural variations, the art invites viewers to engage with these works that are intellectual and poetic in dimension, is timeless and bears repeated viewing over time, is appealing, and is widely accepted by audiences.
Reginald Baylor is Founder and Brand Director of Reginald Baylor Studio, LLC. RBS is a creative studio that specializes in brand experiences. He founded the studio in 2008 with a focus on developing and selling his portfolio of large-scale acrylic on canvas paintings. Over time, he began transforming the studio's product and design services by contracting with project managers and independent designers. This expansion allowed RBS to negotiate and execute the production of projects in a wide range of areas, including communication design, logo design, private and corporate commissions, environmental graphics, community-led designs, destination marketing, site-specific design, events, and co-branding collaborations. As Brand Director, Reginald is responsible for spearheading efforts to elevate the studio's impact on the creative industry through the broadcasting of its business discoveries, community engagement, and organizational strategies.