The Armoury Gallery

Armoury @ The Cedar Gallery - Opening reception

2010-01-20T15:51:00.005-06:00

Here are a few images from the opening reception on January 15th. You can view the rest of the images HERE.

Katie Kraft

Karin Haas & James LaLonde
Sophia Flood

Kevin Giese

Ginger Lukas

Armoury @ The Cedar Gallery

2010-01-06T22:19:00.002-06:00

The Armoury returns for an exhibition in the Cedar Gallery for winter Gallery Night - Friday, January 15th 5-10pm

Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith of the Armoury Gallery return for their first exhibition since closing the doors on their gallery this past spring. Gathering six of Wisconsin’s finest up and coming artists, the exhibition will be held at the Cedar Gallery in the 3rd ward through Saturday, March 13th. Gallery hours will be Wednesday through Saturday from 1:00 - 5:00pm.

Works by Ginger Lukas, Sophia Flood, Kevin Giese, Katie Kraft and a collaboration between Karin Haas and James LaLonde will fill the two floors of gallery space, opening to the public Winter Gallery Night.

Currently studying for her MFA at UW-Madison, Ginger Lukas’s colorful installations will take over the first floor of the gallery space. Simultaneously referencing our obsession with material, consumption and wealth, while rooted in a simpler time of chandeliers and grand balls, they draw comparison between the old and the new, the frivolous and the grand. Lukas earned her BFA at the Maryland Institute – College of Art, and has a host of scholarships, fellowships and grants to her credit.

Also studying for her MFA at UW-Madison, Sophia Flood’s mixed media assemblages reflect a sensitivity to color, shape and space, while drawing out unexpected relationships between her chosen materials. Flood earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Ameherst, and has exhibited nationally.

UW-Milwaukee fine art instructor Kevin Giese will be exhibiting new and old works, including new installation work. Heavily rooted in the natural world, Giese's works often include material elements taken directly from nature, reworked and displayed in ways questioning our relationship to landscape.

Milwaukee native Katie Kraft will have a new series of paintings on display. Graduating in 2008 from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Kraft’s work is playful and intelligent, challenging our perceptions of the ordinary. Aerial views of pool tables make up this series, a simple yet aesthetically purposeful look at a common pastime.

Finally, a collaboration between MIAD graduate Karin Haas and James LaLonde completes the exhibition. Straying from her delicate yet unnerving prints, Haas and LaLonde will install a herd of miniature zebras in the gallery space, an innocent take on relationships and the childlike qualities we so easily forget.

Thanks!

2009-05-20T18:23:00.003-05:00

Thanks for all the support and well wishes! We're going to miss you guys too. Here are some great, thoughtful articles written about our closing.

From Julie Lawrence at OnMilwaukee.com.

From Mary Louise Shumacher at Art City (with great comments by Rex Winsome).

From Mollie Bouttel-Butler at Milwaukee Decider.

From Mary Dally-Muenzmaier at Cricket Toes.

Closing Letter

2009-05-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

Dear friends of the Armoury,

As reluctant as we are to join the list of closing galleries and businesses around Milwaukee, it has unfortunately come time to announce that the Armoury officially closed with the end of our last show on May 2^nd. Due to a variety of reasons, not least of them being financial, we will no longer be continuing to run our space in the Fortress Building.

While we will be closing the doors on the physical gallery space, we are looking forward to new projects and new ways to connect with artists both locally and nationally. It has been a wonderfully enriching experience both of us, and we have worked hard over the last 18 months, garnering numerous benefits personally and professionally. We hope to continue working, collaborating and connecting with people, expanding our horizons and channeling our energy into new projects in the near future.

Of course we want to thank all of the artists who showed with us this past year, along with anyone in the press who took the time to write about and promote our venture. We would also like to thank everyone who has visited the Armoury for an opening or during gallery hours, shared kind words of encouragement and thanks, or recommended us to others. A special thank you to our ardent supporters and advisors: Jason Yi, Sonja Thomsen, Mike Brenner, Jill Sebastian, Josie Osborne, Pegi Taylor, Mary Louise Schumacher, and finally our parents, without whom we would not have enjoyed the fantastic food and drink at every opening.

We will continue to maintain the Armoury Gallery online as an archive of our past shows and you can still contact us at this email address if you have questions about the gallery or any past artists.

Thanks again and take care!

Cassandra and Jessica

Night Work: Gallery Online

2009-04-13T20:43:00.002-05:00

Our Gallery Online is now complete for Night Work! Below are a few photos from the show, but please visit our website to see the entire exhibition. You can click around on each piece in the gallery and view it close-up. Enjoy!

Also, we'll be open this Friday, April 17th for Gallery Night from 5:00 - 9:00 pm. It's a great time to come by and see the show if you haven't already.

Night Work runs until May 2nd with gallery hours on Saturday from noon - 5:00 pm.

Night Work: Reception photos

2009-04-03T09:54:00.011-05:00

Here are some photos from the opening reception on March 27th. You can view the rest of the photos HERE on our Flickr page.

Susceptible to Image review

2009-04-02T14:50:00.003-05:00

We got a short review of our current show on the Susceptible to Images blog by Kat Murrell. The original text is below, but it's part of a much larger post you should go check out HERE.

Night Work opening at the Armoury Gallery

Openings at the Armoury Gallery are always interesting; they tend to have a good mix of people, the gallery itself is a unique space, but more than anything else, gallery proprietors Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith consistently put together intriguing shows. This time around, the exhibition is “Night Work,” pieces created by working art instructors. It may be night work, done after the obligations of the day (or so one could imagine), but these pieces are definitely not an afterthoughts or the remnants of creative energy.

Six artists are featured in the show, and it’s impossible to get a really good look at everything during an opening. But, I have to say I’m impressed by Nathaniel Stern and Jessica Meuninch-Ganger, whose multimedia works blend elegant forms of drawing, collage, and art history tradition integrated with digital surprises. It’s a fascinating blend of old and new art technologies.

In the Armoury Gallery, there is an additional room, a small and humble space but becoming one of my favorite gallery spots. Because it’s a closed area and set off from the general hubbub outside, it has an immediate feeling of separation, as though you’ve entered into a place where, even more so than in the main gallery area, anything can happen. This time, the room holds two works by Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg, both simple but captivating. Unravel links the three-dimensional reality with the two-dimensional possibilities of drawing, and the charming and surreal Draft simply opens up all sorts of imaginative wonderment. Elegant, simple, and inventive.

Night Work @ the Armoury Gallery

2009-03-23T09:20:00.003-05:00

Opening reception:
Friday March 27, 6:00 - 10:00 pm
Show runs: March 27 - May 2

Featuring:
Nathaniel Stern
Jessica Meuninck Ganger
Nicolas Lampert
Shana McCaw & Brent Budsberg
Sonja Thomsen

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its 8th exhibition: Night Work. Focusing specifically on professional artists working as art professors and instructors in Milwaukee, Night Work is an exciting cross section of some of Milwaukee's most talented and recognized artists; three of whom are featured in the Current Tendencies exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. Night work includes two collaborative teams, Nathaniel Stern & Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and ShanaMcCaw & Brent Budsberg, as well as new 2D work by Nicolas Lampert and recent photographs by Sonja Thomsen.

Along with teaching at UW-Milwaukee, Nicolas Lampert is a curator, a co-editor of a book on anti-war illustrations and an artist who works in a variety of media and has exhibited his work extensively across the country and abroad. Lampert co-curated a traveling political art show that toured 33 cities in Canada and the US during a five year run. He has work in the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in NewYork and Milwaukee's own Art Museum. Lampert is also part of the Justseeds Radical Artist's Cooperative that is currently exhibiting an installation at UWM's Union Art Gallery.

Taking over the installation room will be a collaboration by Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg. In seven years of collaboration, McCaw andBudsberg's work has evolved from playful performances about human interaction and rites of passage toward miniature architectural installations investigating transition, space and the passage of time. For Night Work, McCaw and Budsberg will exhibit two new companion sculptures. Incorporating a mysterious wind and subdued atmospheric effects, both pieces create a perception of space beyond the gallery wall, while also suggesting an indirect narrative. McCaw teaches at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Cardinal Stritch and Budsberg is a MIAD 3-d lab supervisor. As a collaborative team, they won a 2008Mary Nohl Fellowship in the Established Artist category.

First time collaborative duo Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and Nathaniel Stern will present a new series of works. Playfully called "Distill Life," this series incorporates technologies and aesthetics from traditional printmaking – including Japanese woodblock and engraving circa the1800s, present-day etching, stone lithography, photogravure etc –with the technologies and aesthetics of contemporary digital, video and networked art, in order to create new forms. Hailing from South Africa, and currently studying for his PhD throughTrinity College in Dublin, Ireland, Nathaniel Stern joined the Milwaukee arts community in 2008 for his position with the Peck School of the Arts at UW Milwaukee. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he has a host of awards, residencies and fellowships to his credit. Jessica Meuninck-Ganger earned her MFA at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and currently teaches at the Peck School of the Arts, also having a host of honors, residencies and exhibitions to her credit.

Earning her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004, SonjaThomsen will present a series of new works from her time spent in 2008 at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida. Most recently featured in the aforementioned Current Tendencies exhibition at Marquette's Haggerty Museum of Art, Sonja has exhibited her work nationally and her photographs are included in the permanent collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Thomsen currently teaches photography classes at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and was a founding member of the Coalition of Photographic Arts (CoPA), serving as president until June of 2008.

Night Work: Postcards

2009-03-14T12:43:00.003-05:00

Our next opening:

NIGHT WORK

Friday, March 27 from 6:00 - 10:00 pm

Show runs March 27 - May 2

We're Anonym.us Press Release

2009-03-03T10:36:00.002-06:00

Lost in a Volcanic Maze: Dispatches from We're Anonym.us
A one-night-only event showcasing over a year’s worth of work: the completion of the "We're Anonym.us” project by local filmmaker, Brian Perkins

Friday, March 13th 2009
6:00 – 10:00pm
screening at 7:30 pm
(Please note this event has been postponed from its original date of March 6th)

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its first ‘one-night-only’ event, featuring the videos, slideshows and text that comprise the “We’re Anonym.us” project. Accompanying paintings will be exhibited, created by the filmmaker Brian Perkins specifically for this event. The artwork will be on display until 10:00 pm and it will be accompanied by a related photographic slideshow.

A video screening will take place at 7:30 and run about 40 minutes, featuring a newly edited assembly of all webisodes and slideshows created for the website, with new entr'acte video segments.

A statement from the filmmaker, Brian Perkins:

“We're Anonym.us" is a multimedia, dream-like fable created in a format that is unlike anything we are aware of. Serialized in thirteen parts on the internet and told in videos, slideshows and text, it relates the story of the writing, delivery and reception of anonymous letters. Like a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Trial", "We're Anonym.us" is a mixture of fantasy, sly humor, and menace.

For more information, please visit the “We’re Anonym.us” website: http://www.wereanonym.us/

We're Anonym.us Postcards

2009-02-27T08:25:00.004-06:00

This is the next event that we're having at the gallery. It is a one night event showcasing the work of local filmmaker Brian Perkins.

CoPA Show

2009-02-20T11:55:00.004-06:00

Tomorrow evening we are hosting the Coalitions of Photographic Art's 4th birthday party. Every year CoPA's celebrates their anniversary by throwing a party/fundraiser for their Photographic Educational Grant. This year we will be hosting the event which will be a silent auction of prints donated by CoPA members.

The show will be from 6:00 - 9:00 pm on Saturday, February 21st.

Midwest Airlines Magazine Article

2009-01-07T19:12:00.004-06:00

The gallery was recently mentioned in an article that ran in the Midwest Airlines in-flight magazine. The article focused on artists and galleries in Eastern Wisconsin. HERE is a link to the article. It is quite long, so below is just an excerpt of the section where we get mentioned:

A Sense of Place
Eastern Wisconsin’s artists have visions for the future that look to the area’s heritage and landscape for inspiration

by Sam Polcer

“It was less than a month after we got back that we were looking for studio space to make our own art,” says Jessica Steeber, who, along with her friend and recent MIAD graduate Cassandra Smith, founded the Armoury Gallery (thearmourygallery.com) upon returning to Milwaukee after a six-month around-the-world journey. They found a spot just north of Downtown that was too nice to use as studio space and decided to fulfill their ambitions of opening a gallery. While only on its sixth exhibition, Armoury has built a solid name for itself and continues to attract attention. For example, kathryn e. martin, an artist garnering acclaim from the Wisconsin art cognoscenti, recently presented her work at the gallery (a large-scale installation of Martin’s, titled flotant, can be seen at the Kohler Arts Center through Jan. 11). Martin is impressed by entrepreneurs like Steeber and Smith, and with the spirit of comraderie that exists among the younger set of art lovers.

“With these galleries popping up, the owners seem to always be there to help each other out, and the artists support each other—as opposed to stepping on each other to get where they need to be,” she says.

Western States: Postcard Images

2008-12-29T23:47:00.005-06:00

Western States: Press Release

2008-12-29T23:22:00.004-06:00

Gallery Night: Friday, January 16th, 2009
Opening reception 5:00 – 10:00 pm
Show runs through February 14th

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its 7th, and possibly most ambitious exhibition to date: Western States. Gathering up some of the most promising new artists the western half of the country has to offer, Western States gives Milwaukee a unique glimpse into art happening West of the Mississippi.

Aili Schmeltz, William Hundley, Gavin Brunner, Colleen Sanders, Adrianne Watson and Milwaukee’s own Colin Matthes will fill the gallery with a variety of 2-D, 3-D and installation work.

Living and working in Los Angeles, Aili Schmeltz earned her MFA in 2003 from the University of Arizona. She has since had 10 solo exhibitions to her credit, over 30 group shows and a host of publications including “Best of the West Coast” in New York Arts Magazine. Schmeltz has also had three separate prints appear in Jen Beckman’s 20x200 project based out of New York.

Hailing from Austin, Texas is photographer William Hundley. Earning his BFA in 1998, Hundley has since garnered international attention for his eerie-yet-playful images. With five solo exhibitions to date, and a bibliography that spans Poland, France, Germany, Chile, Spain, Italy, China and Argentina, we are pleased to be showing a series of his images this Gallery Night.

Also from Los Angeles, Gavin Bunner will be showing a selection of his 2-D works on paper. Appearing in New American Paintings in 2006, Artworld Digest and Studio Visit Magazine, along with three solo shows and a host of group exhibitions to his credit, Bunner is an artist to watch.

Both hailing from San Francisco, Colleen Sanders and Adrianne Watson round out the Western States line-up. Watson earned her MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2008, and her work appears in the current issue of New American Paintings. Sanders earned her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2005 before continuing on to earn her MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2008. Both artists currently have work showing at the Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles.

Last but not least, Milwaukee’s own Colin Matthes will take over the installation space. Matthes’s artwork has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denmark, Spain, and Austria. In 2009, Matthes will have a solo-exhibition at the University of Texas-Pan American and create a wall drawing for a group exhibition at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee. Matthes was also a 2008 Mary Nohl Fellowship recipient, and his work is currently on view in the Inova Gallery at UWM’s Kenilworth building.

(Links to all artists websites can be found on the right side toolbar)

Milwaukee's Own: Shepherd Review

2008-12-17T22:27:00.002-06:00

Todays Shepherd Express includes a review of our current show by the talented Angelina Krahn. You can read the review HERE or below.

Local Cross-Section
Art Review
By Angelina Krahn

In "Milwaukee's Own," the Armoury Gallery's last show of 2008, Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber bring together four emerging local artists, three of whom created site-specific installations. "Milwaukee's Own" is an academic cross-section of sorts: All four artists are or will be MIAD alumni, trained in Milwaukee in the past decade. Aesthetically, the show is tied together by a minimal palette of paper, polystyrene, graphite, and black and gold paint, and, with the exception of some of Mary DiBiasio's works on paper, by coolly detached formalism.

Harvey Opgenorth's Space Debris: Objects of Desire (Hi-Vis Test #1) is the only piece in the show that rigorously incorporates the gallery's architecture. With a deceptively simple conceit, Opgenorth uses a corner of the gallery to paint a black square across walls and water pipes. The best seat in the house for viewing it is settled into the right corner of the gallery's settee, the vantage point at which the blocks of black paint converge to form the illusion of a two dimensional, flat black square festooned with amorphous globs of gold suspended in space.

In the gallery's small back room, kathryn e. martin's White Army is amassed, at ease, its tiny Styrofoam soldiers assembled from the bottoms of cups and plastic spears. Outside in the main gallery, her Untitled (Case Study) cascades down the wall in two clusters of ribbon-like Styrofoam, the tendrils extended and repeated by shadows cast from the overhead lights.

Colin Dickson's Reconnections takes advantage of the Armoury's high ceilings. Tightly-wound rolls of muslin printed with metallic gold are strung, clustered, and mounted to the ceiling. Similar in scale and shape, and placed sparsely throughout the gallery's aft, they hang like eight stalactites in a bright and commodious cave. Dickson's jointed strands, like the phalanges of plush fingers, rhyme visually with Mary DiBiasio's works on paper of traced and silhouetted hands.

Where Opgenorth engages the brain through the eyes and Dickson and martin hint at organic forms, in "Milwaukee's Own" the artist's hand, as it were, is nearly invisible. DiBiasio, however, repeats hers, infusing the show with literal representations of the body. Traced heads in profile, hands and fingerprints are used liberally throughout DiBiasio's work. In Great Expectations, a vertical diptych, graphite is gently dragged up from the bottom of the page, where fingers of cactus-like outgrowths jut from the mouths of limned heads in the desert landscape of empty space. There is a sense of longing in the gesture, as if grasping for the hands above beyond reach.

The artists of "Milwaukee's Own," are superficially linked by educational background and by geography, but each artist's voice is distinct. And while for now they belong to Milwaukee, their work is poised to alight and transcend it.

Milwaukee's Own: Decider article

2008-12-17T22:22:00.002-06:00

The Onion has a new(ish) off-shoot website called The Decider. Each city has their own Decider website, and Mike Brenner is writing for the Decider Milwaukee. This month, in his column "Now Hanging", he mentioned our current show, as well as the shows at Dean Jensen and Paper Boat. You can read the article HERE or below.

Now Hanging
Decider visits local galleries looking for stimulation
by Mike Brenner

Mayuko Kono buys cheap plastic dog figurines from her local 100 yen shop, which is Tokyo’s equivalent of a dollar store. She then spends hours sanding them down until all the layers of fur (and sometimes the flesh and eyes) are removed to reveal exquisite little sculptures resembling chiseled marble, each with a distinct personality. Kono and the 40 other artists in Big, Big Bangs/Small, Small Bucks (Dean Jensen Gallery, through Jan. 24) comprise this who’s-who exhibition of artists with ties to Milwaukee. From silly, anti-art pieces like Scott Reeder’s Snake on Phone to more substantive works from Jensen’s stable of Milwaukee art professors—Sonja Thomsen, Lynn Tomaszewski, and Jason S. Yi—Big, Big Bangs/Small, Small Bucks showcases 100 works of art, all of which are priced at or under $750 and are well worth the investment.

A minuscule number (by comparison) of circular remnants from the 50,000 Styrofoam cups used to create Kathryn E. Martin’s largest-to-date solo exhibition, Flotant (John Michael Kohler Arts Center, through Jan. 11), were saved by the artist and stuck together with cocktail picks to create the 250 robot-like soldiers in Martin’s even more recent work, White Army, Version 6.

Milwaukee’s Own (The Armoury Gallery, through Jan. 2) features the work of three other Milwaukee Institute Of Art & Design grads: Mary DiBiasio, Colin Dickson, and Harvey Opgenorth. As the viewer moves about the gallery, Opgenorth’s Space Debris: Objects Of Desire (Hi-Vis Test #1) just doesn't seem right, almost incomplete or lacking, but when you’re on the very right side of the vintage yellow couch next to the gallery director’s desk, everything falls into place. What seemed like random geometric shapes becomes one solid, grounded square dotted with giant, golden meteors.

Self-taught San Francisco artist and gallery director Lisa Congdon created a completely new body of work for her Milwaukee debut, Life In WonderMountain (Paper Boat Boutique & Gallery, through Jan. 11). Congdon’s first-ever three-dimensional installation juxtaposes pieces of thrift store crochet with found sepia-toned portraits that the artist embellished with multi-colored neon swatches of paint. The old and new are blended into an eerily satisfying altar to WonderMountain’s fictional inbred populous.

Milwaukee's Own: Gallery Online

2008-12-16T19:59:00.007-06:00

For each opening we create an interactive gallery online where you can view the entire show by clicking around on photographs of the gallery. HERE is the link to our Gallery Online for our current show, Milwaukee's Own. Below are some examples of the work from the show. On view until January 3rd with gallery hours on Saturdays from 12:00 - 5:00 pm.

kathryn e martin

Harvey Opgenorth

Mary DiBiasio

Colin T Dickson

Milwaukee's Own: Shepherd Preview

2008-12-03T20:57:00.004-06:00

This week's Shepherd Express has a preview of our show opening this Friday. You can see the original article HERE, or read an excerpt from the article below.

Site-Specific Art
By Peggy Sue Dunigan

Also opening this week is the Armoury Gallery's new exhibit, "Milwaukee's Own." It features four recent Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design graduates, with work constructed specifically for the gallery.

Nationally recognized artist Harvey Opgenorth paints optical illusions directly onto the walls, provoking dual visions of reality, while Colin Dickson fashions a muslin cave. In Dickson's first professional show since graduating in June, screen prints are combined with clusters of cotton to construct a large piece of art. kathryn e. martin, whose work is also on display at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center's "Flotant" exhibit, revisits her circles of Styrofoam cups to create spiral forms envisioning clouds. 2006 graduate Mary DiBiasio portrays hands and human figures through tracings and cutouts rendered in graphite wall hangings.

These eclectic installations "create final products having more potential to shift," says gallery owner Cassandra Smith. The opening reception takes place on Friday, Dec. 5, from 6 to 10 p.m.

kathryn e martin

Harvey Opgenorth

Mary DiBiasio

Colin Dickson

Milwaukee's Own: Press Release

2008-11-19T20:17:00.004-06:00

Friday, December 5th 6:00 – 10:00 pm

Show runs December 5th - January 3rd

The Armoury’s next exhibition looks homeward, featuring four local artists – kathryn e. martin, Harvey Opgenorth, Mary DiBiasio and Colin T Dickson.

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its 6th and most experimental exhibition to date: Milwaukee’s Own. Featuring four of Milwaukee’s most exciting young artists, this not-to-be-missed exhibition will fill the gallery space almost entirely with installation work, including a stalactite cave of muslin, Styrofoam remnants in cloud-like formations, and an optical game involving two walls, a ceiling and giant gold nuggets.

Milwaukee artists kathryn e. martin, Harvey Opgenorth, and Colin T Dickson will utilize the three week break between exhibitions to work in the gallery space, each creating site-specific pieces encompassing a majority of the exhibition space. Mary DiBiasio will present a new series of mixed media works to round out the exhibition. Each artist uses repetition of shape, form, and line in limited color palettes to examine our understanding, perception and relationship to objects and places, simultaneously redefining the interior spaces of the gallery.

kathryn e. martin, having just unveiled her most recent solo exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, shifts focus to a more deliberately confined space for this exhibition, forcing her work to adapt and rebel against the limitations imposed by the walls. martin will engulf a portion of the gallery in masses of Styrofoam ringlets, cut from their previous life as cups and given new meaning as delicate objects of desire. martin is part-time faculty at both UWM and MIAD. In 2001, she earned her BFA from MIAD in Sculpture with an Art History minor, following that up with both her MA and MFA from UWM in InterMedia Studies.

Harvey Opgenorth will also have a site specific installation, involving an optical wall painting and oversized gold nuggets, simultaneously challenging our relationship with and understanding of our environment. Best known for his “Museum Camoufluge” series that earned him national recognition, Opgenorth is inspired by everyday places and our perceptions of them, often using visual games and nostalgic objects to focus our attention on the often overlooked aspects of daily life. In 1999, Opgenorth received his BFA in Painting from MIAD with a minor in Sculpture.

Presenting a new series of graphite drawings is Mary DiBiasio. DiBiasio’s work presents the figure in contour. The ghost-like images exist as mere remnants of the human form, repeating, falling, running across the page, reminding us of our interconnectedness through the fragile nature of human life. Since graduating from MIAD in 2006 with her BFA in Printmaking, DiBiasio has shown consistently in the Milwaukee area, most recently with the Cedar Gallery on Fall Gallery Night, and at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts.

Finally, recent MIAD graduate Colin Dickson will create muslin stalactites to fill a portion of the gallery space with a cave-like creation. He will be using the installation to contrast the formality of the space, while establishing a dialogue with human movement, interaction and reaction. Graduating from MIAD in the spring of this year with a degree in Sculpture, Dickson’s work takes on a grand scale, the artist undaunted by cost, time nor space instead forging ahead in pursuit of his vision. Dickson received the 2008 Fine Art Excellence Award for “3 1/2 miles to the center of somewhere else”, his interactive senior thesis installation that, according to the MIAD website, “invites viewers to get lost in the geometrics of mass and illuminated space”.

Milwaukee's Own: Postcard

2008-11-09T13:25:00.002-06:00

This is the postcard for our upcoming show, Milwaukee's Own. Featuring installation work by four Milwaukee artists: kathryn e. martin, Harvey Opgenorth, Mary DiBiasio and Colin T Dickson. The opening reception is Friday, December 5th from 6:00 - 10:00 pm.

In Contour: Show Images

2008-10-27T21:38:00.005-05:00

This is some of the work from our current exhibition, In Contour. You can view the entire show HERE by clicking through the images of the gallery.

Sonja Peterson (minneapolis)

Paul Kjelland (milwaukee)

Julia Schilling (milwaukee)

In Contour: Reception Photos

2008-10-20T16:48:00.003-05:00

Here are some photos form our fifth exhibition, In Contour. It was held on Friday October 17th which was Milwaukee's Fall Gallery Night.

Artists Julia Schilling (left) & Sonja Peterson (right)

Work by Paul Kjelland

Work by Sonja Peterson

Garden Variety: Journal Sentinel Review

2008-09-26T10:10:00.004-05:00

The review mentioned in the previous post, that Mary Louise Schumacher wrote on her Art City blog, was also featured in the September 25th print edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It was along side a review of the Green Gallery's current show, Cool White Cube, featuring the photography of Paul Druecke.

Garden Variety: Art City Review

2008-09-25T13:51:00.006-05:00

Mary Louise Schumacher recently posted a review of Garden Variety on her Art City blog. You can read the review below, or in its original form HERE.

Garden Variety show at Armoury
By Mary Louise Schumacher
Thursday, Sep 25 2008, 01:40 PM

Over at the Armoury Gallery, 1718 N. 1st St., Minneapolis-based artists Erika Olson and Joseph Sinness have art on view through Oct. 4.

Plump seeds and pods erupt across the page in an ecstatic surge, a cannonade of strange, organic matter gushing and commingling, in Olson's gouache and graphite works. That this rapturous bursting, an illusion to reproduction, both plant and human, is restrained into submission by Olson's almost computer-like fine lines, flat areas of color and subdued pastel colors creates an intriguing tension. The stop motion-like, precise manmade-ness of the scene demands careful inspection and begs the question: what is more beautiful, naturalism or idealism?

What hurtles and collides in Sinness' visual garden, as opposed to Olson's stuff of earth, is more of the good-and-evil, metaphysical sort. Nature is on a punishing rampage, doing unprecedented things in many of Sinness' color pencil drawings. Giant sea barnacles appear to seize a red AMC Pacer in its tracks in one piece, while a monster, an amalgam of worms, weeds, bugs and fangs, prepares to pounce on a rabbit, unaware and innocently chomping on flowers in another.

"Clouder" is a violent, upward outbreak of cat heads, all writhing, each one emerging from another like bizarre appendages. Imagine an epic cat melee concentrated into a single, explosive heap. There is a lush, fullness to this odd cornucopia of kitties, too. With ears perked, their blue and orange Bette Davis eyes dart this way and that, as if they've got prey in sight. The battle of evil and light is rarely this much fun.

In Contour: Show Postcards

2008-09-22T10:23:00.002-05:00

These are the postcards for our fifth opening, to be held on Fall Gallery Night. The cover images is by Paul Kjelland.

In Contour: Press Release

2008-09-22T10:18:00.003-05:00

In Contour @ The Armoury Gallery
October 17 – November 15
Opening Reception: Gallery Night, October 17th, 5 – 10pm

The Armoury Gallery is please to announce its fifth exhibition, In Contour, with an opening reception to be held Fall Gallery Night, October 17th from 5-10 pm.

In Contour features the work of Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson and local artists Paul Kjelland and Julia Schilling. All three artists use line, contour and silhouette to deconstruct and analyze the world around us, breaking environments and relationships down to their respective parts.

Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson will present a series of new and old works for the exhibition. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, having earned her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is featured in book 77 of New American Paintings, a juried exhibition-in-print selected from over 1000 applicants.

Peterson works with large scale paper cutouts and drawings, then suspends them and sets the work against painted imagery on the wall behind. The use of silhouette implies a level of simplicity and reduction, but the complex nature of the shapes and repeating patterns, combined with the tedious process, imply a complexity that begs for consideration

Local artist Paul Kjelland will have a new series of his mixed media, photography-based works on hand. Graduating from MIAD in 2005 with a BFA in photography, Kjelland has since worked consistently, showing with Hotcakes at Aqua Art in Miami and Art Chicago, at Milwaukee International, Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Luckystar and others.

Kjelland’s work takes a compartmentalized look at the constructed world that surrounds us. Using paper cutouts, screen printing and digital media, Kjelland takes apart our surroundings and reassembles them as a course of reflection and examination of the world around us.

Finally, Julia Schilling of the White Whale Collective will create a sight-specific installation for this opening. Julia graduated from MIAD in 2008, earning her BFA in Sculpture and minor in Writing, and has been involved in curating and exhibiting with the White Whale since it was formed this past January. She has also participated in various public art projects, including the collaboration 'Points of View' for the Riverwalk Association.
Schilling's work combines sculpture and drawing to explore landforms and methods of mapping. For this opening, her installation will employ piles, mounds, and words to address landscapes, elevation and way finding

Garden Variety: Review by Jeff Filipiak

2008-09-19T08:54:00.003-05:00

This is the second review we recieved for our opening Garden Variety. It was written by Jeff Filipiak for the art review website, Susceptible to Images. You can read the whole review below, or HERE.Garden Variety: Works by Joseph Sinness, Erika Olson, River Bullock
By Jeff Filipiak

The origins of the current show at the young Armoury Gallery have more to do with domesticity than dirt. These artists wanted to explore issues at home, and during the summer happened to step outside and find inspiration in their yards. Their work ended up amidst plants and animals, exploring gardens from a variety of angles. They use visuals as a means of contemplating aesthetics, identity, and the place of 'natural' elements within human lives, especially sexuality. Joseph Sinness finds both innocence and kitsch in the garden; his favorite subjects, rabbits, might reflect both. Erika Olson's works explore reproduction, dominated by seed flows; while River Bullock focuses on our perceptions of plantscapes. Other than the Swiss chard growing in her soil-based installation, there is little evidence of food in these gardens – they are primarily visual, theoretical, and/or decorative.

In the gardens of Joseph Sinness (both the colored-pencil ones in the gallery, and the ones in his yard), grown for pleasure instead of food, he coexists with rabbits; in fact, he identifies with them against cats. His most frightening image is that of a monstrous cat (inspired, he says, by hearing baby rabbits scream in agony in the middle of the night). Rabbits are his symbol of innocence; equally prominent are symbols of kitsch, drawn from discos, Dolly Parton and Kylie Minogue. His works often feature some kind of conflict between two subjects; between something innocent and something dynamic, or between a couple and onlookers judging them. The viewer might draw their own conclusions from these conflicts – is a 'fall' occurring? Are we observing something natural, or something sinister? Sinness draws attention to some of the stakes, influenced by centuries-old Christian imagery as he provides imagery from Hieronymus Bosch to go along with the gardens and images of judgment.Erika Olson works primarily in watercolor, gouache and graphite; but her pieces are really about flows. She covers about half of each work (except for one sculpture) with a pattern that usually consists of three different varieties of images. Those varieties are drawn as if borne upon a current; they seem to float, stick together. Her works suggest motion, but are calm. She depicts flows of seeds, drawing our attention to plant reproduction; but her images extend beyond typical garden plants to what appear to be pinecones, diamonds and clam shells. These are flows orchestrated by a human hand, but resemble natural flows (they do not resemble typical garden or machine patterns). Her objects are sketched more geometrically than particularly, more suggestively than thoroughly.

While Olson and Sinness direct the reader's attentions to a few key elements, highlighting them by leaving as much as half of their surfaces blank, River Bullock does less to 'clean up' nature. She photographs, and her scenes are full. Not only that, but she lets her scenes overlap the photos, suggesting a lack of isolation, that these plants are part of a larger mass. Photos are not cropped to include distinctive elements on the edges, nor did she highlight key elements like one plant or one branch. Instead, these felt full, as if she was taking group photos rather than highlighting individuals. Four of her photos feature two plant layers (each apparently a different species) and a third layer, of darkness. She limits her organization of the materials in other ways as well – all her pieces are untitled, without labels (admittedly, I was curious to see a list of 'materials' for her soil plot). The viewer is left to draw connections between the disparate elements of her installation – photographs, a small actual garden plot (including dirt, plants, and worms), and a reading list. The soil adds a vital element to a garden show, literally grounding the works of the other artists. Bullock hopes to encourage viewers to do their own looking – and reading, since she provides a reading list on nature and plants, led off by Wendell Berry.

After viewing the show, we are left to wonder: what is the human place in the garden, where humans seek to organize nature in a domestic space? Sinness identifies with some animals against others; should we be taking sides? Gardeners take sides for the sake of food, of course, but is it also justified for other reasons? Homosexuality has been criticized as unnatural, yet Sinness explores it using natural images, complicating issues. Bullock tries to minimize the human role in some ways, leaving more to the viewer to determine, allowing 'weed' species more of a role in her gardens. Olson raises these issues most explicitly in her artist statement, asking "when nature is cleaned up, arranged and controlled by humans what value does that interaction hold for us?" Excessive oversimplification through monoculture, of the mind or on the ground, does not leave a role for natural creative impulses, whether of humans or nonhumans. So we must strike a balance between the selection and narrowing of focus found in gardening and in art – and the collection, identification, and nurturing which nourishes humans and nonhumans alike.

Jeff Filipiak is an instructor at several local colleges, and frequent contributor to Susceptible to Images. He is currently teaching a course on "Food and Power: Why Am I Eating This?"

Garden Variety: Review by Angelina Krahn

2008-09-10T11:19:00.003-05:00

This is a review by Angelina Krahn that was printed in the Shepherd Express newspaper today. The full text is below, but you can also view the original article online HERE.
Microcosmic Drama
By Angelina Krahn

Joseph Sinness' cross-hatched pileups of vegetation, bouquets of felines and swaths of lace converge with Erika Olson's cascades of organic material to reinterpret the pastoral and the prosaic in "Garden Variety," the Armoury Gallery's fourth exhibition.

Olson's gouache and graphite works on paper conflate the palette and restraint of Suzuki Harunobu's feminine woodcuts with the sensitive, stylized surfaces characteristic of Ert's fashion illustrations. Olson arranges and repeats small objects, choreographing gusts of jewel-like, faceted pinecones, seed pods or larvae across the page. The dramatic tension resides in the implied motion of these sweeping gestures across the tundra of empty space. Symbolically, the elements that comprise Olson's work are the fruits of successful reproduction among plants, by way of spontaneous intimacies with wind or the promiscuity of bees on stamens, but the intended sexual tension is countered by Olson's process. Executed by a precise and controlled hand, natural elements are synthesized into pure geometric forms.

In addition to the two-dimensional work, Olson has included Feigned Growth, a hibiscus-hued soft sculpture. While the flatness and sterility of the marks subdue any sexual undertones in Olson's works on paper, the sensual and tactile qualities are unmistakable in commingled stacks of fuchsia and orange felt cutouts beneath the fertile, overstuffed pods of Feigned Growth.

Sinness' Apocalyptical Dolly is a postmodern deity, though Parton's celebrity status, tacky theme park empire and silicone-enhanced proportions will likely outlive the butterflies and swallows roosting in her halo of curls in Sinness' homage. Another Parton-inspired piece, Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That? mimics the two shot composition of Apocalyptical Dolly, replacing the benevolent country diva with a fanged, grotesque gorgon chasing a rabbit off the page.

Sinness repeats rabbits and piles kittens; these feral breeders scamper throughout much of his work represented in "Garden Variety." The absence of these totem creatures in his figural drawings allows the viewer to set aside decoding what Sinness' describes as "new queer kitsch iconography." In the disturbing vignette I'm Doing This for Your Sake, an older woman watches intently as a young woman with protruding front teeth reluctantly drops a pill on her tongue. Sinness renders the pair with a realism he reserves for mortals. Every surface crawls with texture: lips curl, curls tumble, cloth buckles and creases.

Tucked in the back of the gallery, a series of local photographer River Bullock's untitled medium-format images more literally interpret the show's theme, with a portion of her garden plot transplanted among them. Bullock's photographs faithfully document nature, preserving patterns of leaves under the natural blue cast of daylight.

Garden Variety: Show Images

2008-09-10T08:50:00.006-05:00

These are some images from our fourth exhibition Garden Variety. You can view the entire show by visiting our Gallery Online. This is an interactive feature that allows you to see the entire gallery and click on each piece of art to view it in detail. We have created the Gallery Online to give those who aren't able to make it into the gallery the oppurtunity to still view the whole show.

Joseph Sinness

Erika Olson

River Bullock

Garden Variety: Reception Photos

2008-09-10T07:58:00.007-05:00

Here are some photos from our opening reception of Garden Variety. The show opened Friday, September 5th and will run through Saturday, October 4th with galleries hours on Saturdays from 12:00 - 5:00 pm. Or daily by appointment.

MIGA Radio Interview

2008-08-28T12:51:00.002-05:00

We were recently interviewed for Lake Effect/WUWM by Paul Kosidowski about MIGA, the Milwaukee Independent Gallery Association that we started. The interview orginally aired on August 28th, but you can listen to the whole thing HERE.

Garden Variety: Prints for Sale

2008-08-19T17:32:00.005-05:00

Joseph Sinness, "Apocalyptical Dolly"

At our next opening, we are going to be selling 19" x 26" limited edition, signed prints of this image by Joseph Sinness for $30.00. If you're as excited about owning this image as we are, please email us so we can be sure to pre-order enough.
info@thearmourygallery.com

Garden Variety: Postcards

2008-08-18T12:14:00.005-05:00

This are our new postcards for the upcoming show. We will be featuring the work of Joseph Sinness (minneapolis), Erika Olson(minneapolis) and River Bullock (mke).

Opening Reception: Friday September 5th, from 7:00 - 11:00pm.

Preview: Our project for "What You Get When You Cross..."

2008-08-06T08:55:00.001-05:00

Although this isn't strictly an Armoury related post, we wanted to take the time to plug the upcoming Cedar Block event that we will be participating in at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Jessica and I were asked to be one of 23 teams to collaborate on a piece based around the current MAM exhibition of Gilbert & George. These are images of our work in progress.

This event will be held August 15th, from 8:00 - midnight and is a one night only show, so mark it down and don't forget to come by.

Here is a more detailed description of the show:

"In the tradition of Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, and Martin & Lewis, the Milwaukee Art Museum & Cedar Block pay tribute to a new generation of comedy teams. "What You Get When You Cross..." pays homage to Gilbert & George as twenty-three Milwaukee-area artists each team up with a partner to create new works based on jokes submitted by friends of the Art Museum. The fifth collaboration of MAM and Cedar Block promises to entertain, enlighten, and create dialogue inspired by the work of the two visionaries featured in the Museum's latest groundbreaking exhibition." $7/$5 Members

Hidden Exposure: Images of the Show

2008-08-05T10:17:00.000-05:00

After the opening Jessi spent a bunch of time photographing all the work in the show and putting up on our website. These are just a few images from our Gallery Online, click here to see the entire show.

Jackie Hoving

AOMIII

Hidden Exposure: Reception Photos

2008-07-28T10:52:00.000-05:00

Here are some photos from our July 25th opening reception. All three artists, along with their friends and families, were in attendence for the opening.

AOM III, his fiance Jessie and Jackie Hoving

(work by AOM III)

Work by Jackie Hoving

Jackie Hoving with her grandfather

Work by AOM III

Installation by Allison Heape

Allison Heape (middle) in her installation.

Work by Jackie Hoving

Recent Press

2008-07-26T15:56:00.000-05:00

This week we got some great coverage from the Journal Sentinel.

First there was a new interactive feature on the Art City blog where readers were invited to call-in with their picks for Gallery Night. Several of the callers talked about the Armoury and they had really great things to say.

There was also an article about the gallery association, MIGA, that we recently started. It was a great article highlighting the MIGA galleries and it was actually on the cover of the Cue section in Friday's paper (July 25).

This week's Shepherd included an interesting article by Mollie Butler about the trials of owning a small gallery in Milwaukee. We were lucky enough to be on of the galleries featured in the article, and pictures of our last show, Landscapism, were used on the cover.

Hidden Exposure: Postcard

2008-07-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

This is the new postcard we created for our upcoming show. The front images is by Jackie Hoving. They are surprisingly less vibriant in real life, but they still look great.

Sneak Peek: Hidden Exposure

2008-07-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

Here are some images from two of the artist who are showing with us on Gallery Night. The opening is July 25th, from 5:00 - 10:00pm. We have their websites listed under the "Showing Artists" section to the right.

Jackie Hoving

AOM III

Landscapism: June 20 - July 19

2008-07-11T14:56:00.001-05:00

Our second opening included work by Dan Schank from Philadelphia and Elizabeth Ann Lopez from Chicago. Both artists traveled to Milwaukee for the opening. There was also a collaboration by local artists and recent MIAD graduates, Mark Schieber and Erik Baden.

Dan Schank

Elizabeth Ann Lopez

Mark Schieber & Erik Baden

Opening Reception: May 9 - June 7

2008-07-11T14:28:00.000-05:00

These are images of the work from our first opening. All of the artists are from Milwaukee, and Jessica and I both showed in this opening as well.

Karin Haas

Emily Siegel Belknap

Eduardo J Villanueva

Cassandra Smith

Jessica Steeber