ALL exhibits reception

media release: Aesthetics of Loss, a collection of work by artists who have experienced the recent loss of friends and family members, will be on display at Arts + Literature Laboratory from Tuesday, July 11 through Friday, September 1, 2023. Caregiving, memory, loss, and the ultimate mystery of death are explored through painting, printmaking, fibers, ceramics, photography, installation, and video.

Two exhibition related events will take place on Saturday, July 22.

First, from 3:30pm to 5:00pm, artists Anne Basting and Jessica Meunick Ganger will present Care Shower, a performance and exhibit inspired by the realization that there are no positive rituals to share knowledge and resources and shower support on people who are embarking on the transition to becoming a caregiver for an adult or elder.

Then, a reception for Aesthetics of Loss will be held from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

August 6 1:30-3:30PM Performance by Anders Zanichkowsky

Artists include EBTI, Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, Brianna L. Hernández,  Linda b. Marcus, Nirmal Raja, Jaymee Harvey Willms and Anders Zanichkowsky

Recent work by Kimberly Burnett will be on display in our third floor project space from Tuesday, July 11 through Friday, September 1, 2023. A reception for all of our current exhibitions will be held on Saturday, July 22 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

Kimberly Burnett is an artist from the Milwaukee area. At 2 years old she told people that she was an artist, and has never stopped creating art since then. Her work is classically influenced, with realism being broken apart a little by the bits of color she sees around her. You can see her love of the Old Masters and the beauty of nature in her artwork. Burnett primarily works with oils and charcoal.

Artist statement: Art is not something I choose to make. Instead, art chose me from a young age. How do I experience life? It isn’t through words or accomplishments. Life is chunks of color and smears of light and it is this experience that I hope to convey on canvas. I would like people to look at my art and feel the full breadth of what it is to be human.

American Altars, an exhibition by Rosy Petri, will be on display in the first floor lobby project space and the second floor mezzanine from Tuesday, July 11 through Friday, September 1, 2023. A reception for American Altars and our other current exhibitions will be held on Saturday, July 22 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

Rosy Petri is a mother, self-taught artist, and storyteller from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her multidisciplinary works fuse fabric portraiture, multimedia storytelling, and illustration as an act of witness.

From her exhibition statement: "American Altars is my attempt at embodying a journey of cultural remembrance, ancestral grief, and the emotional reckoning required of Black people on the move in America of all generations from the post-insurrection perspective. The installation includes photographs grouped to explore the month-long journey driving 1,400 miles alone as a Black woman from Milwaukee to Clarksdale, Michigan (home of the legendary crossroads, the Delta blues, and land of my father’s people); New Orleans, Louiisiana (birthplace of jazz, historically free Creole people, and unique Black cultural experience); Birmingham, Alabama (a living witness of the American Civil Rights and Labor  movements); Atlanta, Georgia (a Black Mecca of culture), and Berea, Kentucky (the bluegrass state, home of the Kentucky Derby, and Appalachian stronghold where I was heading to become the inaugural artist in residence at the bell hooks center at Berea College)."

In 2021, Petri served as the inaugural Artist in Residence at the bell hooks center at Berea College. In 2020, she was selected as a Mary L Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow and a Mildred L. Harpole Artist of the Year from the city of Milwaukee Arts Board. In 2019, as the 11th Pfister Artist in Residence, Petri created a space to celebrate creative traditions of the African diaspora.