After much deliberation, the jurors for the James Watrous Gallery’s 2023 Call for Artists and Curators have made their final selections. A record 245 applications were received in all – 30% more than in 2017 – making the jury’s decisions extremely challenging.
In addition to artistic merit, the jury was asked to consider a balance between emerging, mid-career, and established artists; a wide range of perspectives and media; and themes with the potential to cross disciplines and encourage dialogue. Together they selected 27 exhibition proposals from across Wisconsin, featuring an exceptionally diverse group of artists and aesthetic concerns. The Wisconsin Academy is deeply grateful to jurors Portia Cobb, Anwar Floyd-Pruitt, Yvette Pino, Rae Senarighi, and Leslie Walfish for their dedicated and thoughtful work.
Artists:
Thomas Antell (Hayward)
Lisa Marie Barber (Kenosha)
*Marna Brauner and Hai Chi Jihn (Shorewood)
Mary Burns (Mercer)
Jerry Butler (Sun Prairie)
Jamal Currie (Milwaukee)
Anamarie Edwards (Milwaukee)
Terri Fischer (Madison)
Jolene M. Frechette (Madison)
Maureen Fritchen (Racine)
Nina Ghanbarzadeh (Muskego)
Jon Horvath (Waukesha)
Romano Johnson (Madison)
Jayne King (Chicago, IL with strong WI connection)
Warren King (New York, NY with strong WI connection)
Lillian Luft (Milwaukee)
Madeline Grace Martin (Milwaukee)
*Sandra Jo and Wenceslao Martinez (Sturgeon Bay)
Lois Peterson (Dakota, MN with strong WI connection)
*Jill Sebastian and Lisa Bachhuber (Milwaukee)
Lidia Sharapova (Milwaukee)
Stacey Steinberg (Oconomowoc)
Roberto Torres Mata (Madison)
*joint projects
Guest curators:
Amal Azzam and Nayfa Naji, for “Wherever Home Is,” featuring Muslim Arab American artists
Melanie Herzog and Susan Messer, for “Grounded Materials,” addressing histories of place, environmental practices, and cultural and geographic displacement
Ann Sinfield, for a career retrospective of artist Nirmal Raja’s work
Scott Terry, for “BEYOND,” celebrating Black male visual and performing artists
Over the next few months, gallery staff will work with the selected artists and curators to map out an exhibition schedule for the next several years. Visit wisconsinacademy.org/gallery for the most current information.
For applicants:
Email notification of the jury results was sent on May 26th. If it has not reached your in-box, please be sure to check the spam folder. Other questions? Email gallery@wisconsinacademy.org.
Thank you to our 2023 Call For Artist jurors
Anwar Floyd-Pruitt is an artist, curator, and puppeteer from Milwaukee. A graduate of UW-Madison (MFA ’20), Floyd-Pruitt also earned a BFA from UW-Milwaukee (’16) and BA in Psychology from Harvard University (’99). The Chazen Museum of Art, Edgewood College, Mount Mary University and the Museum of Wisconsin Art have hosted solo exhibitions of his collages, paintings, and mixed-media self-portraits. In addition to leading puppet making workshops, Floyd-Pruitt writes and performs a family friendly singalong called Hip Hop Puppet Party. In 2021 he was awarded a grant from the Jane Henson Foundation to engage at-risk youth in puppetry. Floyd-Pruitt is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend. https://art.wisc.edu/2022/09/21/why-race-matters-episode-4-art-black-joy-with-anwar-floyd-pruitt/
Portia Cobb is an interdisciplinary artist deeply interested in telling stories that reflect the double-consciousness of African American history, identity, memory & forced forgetting. Her body of work and research have joined these themes to short-form videos, photographic essays, field recordings, ephemeral installation and performance. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of The Arts: Department of Film, Video, Animation & New Genres. https://portiacobb.com/portia-cobb-interdisciplinary-artist
Yvette M. Pino earned her BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and received a Certificate in Museum Studies from Northwestern University. She was a National Endowment for the Humanities Curatorial Fellow for the 2019 National Veteran Art Museum Triennial and Veteran Art Summit. Pino served on the Madison Arts Commission From 2013-2021 and is the Curator of Veteran Art for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison, Wisconsin where she recently curated artwork for the award-winning historic renovation of the Milwaukee Soldiers Home by the Alexander Company. https://yvettempino.com/about-1
Rae Senarighi is a champion of storytelling through art, as a fine artist, designer and muralist, an activist, cancer survivor and pursuing accurate and celebratory representation of the trans community. Rae currently resides in Madison, WI, but he makes a lasting impact throughout the world. His art can be seen internationally and is featured in a wide range of outlets from Art Voices magazine to DNA India. https://transpainter.com/about
Leslie Walfish is the Director of Galleries, Campus Curator, and an Instructor in the Art Department at UW Oshkosh. She has an MA in Art History from the University of Arizona and an MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Leslie moved to Wisconsin in 2007 and has worked in at a number of the state’s great campus art galleries including Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Galleries, UW Green Bay’s Lawton Gallery, and UW Stevens Point’s Edna Carlsten Gallery. She became the Director of the Allen Priebe and Annex Galleries at UW Oshkosh in 2017.
