Plum Blossom Initiative and Var Gallery proudly present the Bridge Work 10 Professional Development Program exhibition Yard Work,  featuring new works by Lillith Forsythe, Chad Alexander Matha, and Kaden Van De Loo.

 

Plum Blossom Initiative (PBI), founded by Leah Kolb and Jason S. Yi, facilitates creative platforms that support artists’ practices and the community's culture. Plum Blossom Initiative’s Bridge Work Professional Development Program (a 10-month annual program since 2015) is a collaborative endeavor that provides three new art school graduates with opportunities to continue artistic momentum and transition into a sustainable professional studio practice. Acknowledging the nuances inherent to the contemporary art world, our interest centers on guiding emerging artists to navigate this uncertain terrain by broadening the scope of their professional experiences and community engagement.

 

Bridge Work is generously supported by Var Gallery and The Open Fund through the Poor Farm, with funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Ruth Foundation for the Arts.

 

Lillith Forsythe (she/they) is a cross-disciplinary artist from Chicago, IL, currently residing and working in Milwaukee, WI. Lilith received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Design in 2024. She combines printmaking, papermaking, and sculpture to create visceral objects that blur realities. Their childhood admiration for natural sciences met with feelings of displacement, discomfort, and existentialism results in work that constantly questions.

 

Lillith is a current artist in residence in the Plum Blossom Initiative’s Bridgework 10. They have exhibited locally at Between Two Galleries, Small Works Gallery, Some Fools Basement, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and VAR Gallery.

 

Chad Alexander Matha is a sculptor living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Through contemporary approaches to craft, he uses found objects and textiles to reconsider his environs and navigate the world as a Queer person of Ho-Chunk and Italian descent.

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Chad earned a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a focus on sculpture, textiles, and soft-goods design. He is a recipient of the 2024 International Outstanding Student Sculptor Award (ISF), the 2024 Gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix grant (Milwaukee, WI), a 2024/25 artist-in-residence of Bridgework 10: Plum Blossom Initiative (Milwaukee, WI), a 2023 artist-in-residence at Yale Norfolk School of Art (Norfolk, CT), and a 2018/19 artist-in-residence at Redline MKE (Milwaukee, WI). His work has been exhibited throughout the Midwest, including solo exhibitions at Usable Space Gallery (Milwaukee, WI) and Redline Gallery (Milwaukee, WI).

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Kaden Van De Loo is a painter and recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing and a minor in art history. His work has been exhibited at Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, and Greenpoint Open Studios in Brooklyn, New York. In the spring, he curated “Sword Thumbs” for Real Tinsel in Milwaukee, a 13-artist show exhibiting various approaches to formal disruption in abstract painting. Recently, Van De Loo had a solo show at UW-Oshkosh’s Annex Gallery and had work in the Atlanta Art Fair with Real Tinsel.