The Steenbock Gallery Takes "Another Look At Southwest Wisconsin"!

Steenbock Gallery to Open Tyler S. Ensrude Exhibit

“Another Look At Southwest Wisconsin” exhibition inspires another look at familiar scenes of Americana.

“Another Look At Southwest Wisconsin,” an exhibit featuring photographs by Tyler S. Ensrude, will be on display February 6, 2012 to March 9, 2012 in the Steenbock Gallery.  An artist’s reception will take place on Friday, February 10, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.  The event is free and open to the public.  The Steenbock Gallery is located at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University Ave., and is open Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

            “Southwest Wisconsin is my home,” says Ensrude, “Everything I see here reminds me of that. I was born and raised here, but I also had a second home for nearly a decade during the second Bush Administration, in the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan… Around the time I returned to the Midwest is when I started to notice trends and patterns in the landscape that I couldn’t remember seeing while I was growing up here or on my short visits home over the years… The once familiar landscape had assumed a strange veneer, a curious overlay fraught with juxtaposition and contradiction… In my photographs, I try to capture a piece of something unique to inspire another look, and a different way of seeing something familiar.”

To view the artist’s work, please visit http://tylerensrude.com/

Reception for "Decomposing" Tonight!

Opening Reception tonight at the Steenbock, 6-9 PM! Come check out our first exhibit of 2012, "Decomposing" by Ting-Li Lin! Refreshments, friends, and a beautiful new show. Hope to see you there!

Check out the "Decomposing" event page on Facebook!

New Year, New Steenbock Exhibition! "Decomposing" by Ting-Li Lin

 

Steenbock Gallery to Open Ting-Li Lin Exhibit

“Decomposing” exhibition breaks down complex architecture

through black and white photography.

“Decomposing,” an exhibit featuring photographs by Ting-Li Lin, will be on display January 4, 2012 to February 3, 2012 in the Steenbock Gallery.  An artist’s reception will take place on Friday, January 13, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.  The event is free and open to the public.  The Steenbock Gallery is located at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University Ave., and is open Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

“The purpose of decomposition, in general, is to break a complex idea into small, easy-understood concepts,” says Ting-Li Lin. Instead of perceiving the world as a whole, I find it fascinating to just look at the elements of it, and thus the creation of the Decomposing series. In this series, I applied the idea of decomposition to architecture photography. Not only do I pay attention to the forms and shapes of the interior of buildings, I also choose the light sources carefully so that the interior is luminous in a certain way.”

To view the artist’s work, please visit http://tinglilin.com

Check Out Our Final Exhibition of 2011! "People of the Big Voice"

Steenbock Gallery to Open “People of the Big Voice" 

  

“People of the Big Voice” exhibition highlights Charles Van Schaick's photographs of the Ho-Chunk

“People of the Big Voice,” an exhibit featuring photographs by Charles Van Schaick from the Wisconsin State Historical Society collection, will be on display November 7 to December 30 in the Steenbock Gallery.  A reception will be held on Saturday, November 12, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.  The event is free and open to the public.  The Steenbock Gallery is located at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University Ave., and is open Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

This unique and rich collection from the Wisconsin State Historical Society highlights Charles Van Schaick's photographs of the Ho-Chunk. Van Schaick was a portrait photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin who documented the town and its citizens for over sixty years. The photographs taken by Van Schaick are an invaluable visual legacy of the Ho-Chunk people. These commissioned photographs by the Ho-Chunk were intended for private use for their family, community, and home lives. This exhibition will provide an understanding of how the Ho-Chunk shaped the way they are perceived through the power of self-representation.

This exhibit coincides with the release of "People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942" by Tom Jones, Michael Schmudlach, Matthew Daniel Mason, Amy Lonetree and George Greendeer published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

The Steenbock Gallery Announces the Opening of "SUMMER ECLIPSED" by Kendall McMinimy

Steenbock Gallery to Open Kendall McMinimy Exhibit

“Summer Eclipsed” exhibition explores the complex relationship northerners have with Winter, 

a struggle that defines the character of the region.

 
“Summer Eclipsed,” an exhibit featuring photographs by Kendall McMinimy, will be on display September 26 to November 4 in the Steenbock Gallery.  An artist’s reception will take place on Friday, September 30, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.  The event is free and open to the public.  The Steenbock Gallery is located at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University Ave., and is open Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

            “These images are intended to draw the viewer into the snowy isolation—to feel the effect of a long winter, and to place a high value on what summer will bring,” says McMinimy. “However chilling the landscape, some viewers will see hope in the vestiges of summer. Others may feel the jeer of summer relics left out by insensitive procrastinators, caught off-guard by an early onslaught. Some may see garish summer monuments demanding our unseasonable attention, tainting the pristine landscape… For those of us who live within the upper-Midwest snow belt, winter can be a long struggle: fighting the snow, fighting the inertia, and fighting the hopeless isolation that comes with the frozen overlay… My course through the snow and ice became my passage through inertia, isolation and confinement I had previously succumbed to in winter. In finding this path, I also found a glimpse of the true character of the region: that winter’s fury strengthens resolve and winter’s stillness affords introspection.”

To view the artist’s work, visit www.mcminimy.com

Check out the Newest Show at the Steenbock Gallery - "LOST SCHOOLS" by Samantha VanDeman

Steenbock Gallery to Open Samantha VanDeman Exhibit

“Lost Schools” exhibition portrays interiors and objects found in abandoned schools.

“Lost Schools,” an exhibit featuring photographs by Samantha VanDeman, will be on display August 15 to September 23 in the Steenbock Gallery.  An artist’s reception will take place on Sunday, August 21, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm.  The event is free and open to the public.  The Steenbock Gallery is located at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University Ave., and is open Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

            “About a year ago, I started making frequent trips to Gary, Indiana,” says VanDeman. “During that time, I started to photograph the interiors of abandoned structures. I wasn’t sure why I became so fascinated with the buildings: I just knew that I wanted to photograph them before they were gone. Lost Schools is an ongoing photographic series that evolved from my many explorations. I began this project by looking at empty rooms and remnants that remained in the spaces. Looking deeper, I began photographing… [and] examining how these objects provide links to memory, nostalgia and loss. I’m interested in how quickly these schools were forgotten about… as if one day, the teachers walked out and didn’t look back… With the destruction of these schools, any memory of these places will be erased from time. Photographs and artifacts will be all that remain.”

New Exhibit! Tyler Robbins: SUBURBAN

Stop by the Steenbock Gallery this week to check out our newest exhibit, "Suburban" by Tyler Robbins.

“Suburban is an identity and a state of mind,” says Robbins. “The suburbanite archetype is not revered, nor is it regularly claimed by those who fit the role. My images are an open-ended narrative. They serve as an allegory for suburban existence . . . [But] if my images fail to become symbols for all that is suburban, they can at least represent what really matters: A well-manicured lawn, beer, grilled meat, and the weekend.”


To view the artists work, please visit http://www.tylerrobbins.net/

Please join us for an artist's reception on Friday, July 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

This exhibition will run from July 4 to August 12.

New Exhibit! Lisa Frank: THE PATTERN THAT CONNECTS

The newest Steenbock Gallery exhibit opens this week! "The Pattern that Connects" features photographs by Lisa Frank.

“My artwork is influenced by my professional background as a textile designer,” says Frank.  “The activity of taking pictures almost daily in the woods makes for a visual diary – it illuminates my relationship with the natural world, and documents changing evidence of the ordinary and the astonishing.  Season after season I rely on nature’s comforting repetition – the familiarity and security that comes from knowing – seeing! – that soon after the appearance of the jack-in-the-pulpit comes the anticipated morel and the resulting mushroom risotto.  This creates the true ‘pattern’ of my work: the inter-relationships between all of nature’s corresponding parts, where one thing begets another, one day becomes a year and then two... This personal, arbitrary, asymmetrical time chart is deeply resonant for me and key to my understanding of what it means to be alive and of this world.  My patterns are constructed using Photoshop from these daily snapshots, and from scanographs composed in my studio.”

To view the artist’s work, visit www.lisafrankphotography.com

  

Join us on Friday, May 27, for an opening reception from 6-9PM.

This exhibition will run until from May 23 until July 1.  

Click Into Place: Work from UW-Madison Photo Students

Tyler Robbins

The UW-Madison photography students return to the Steenbock!!!!

Opening Monday, enjoy new work from photographers studying with Tom Jones in the undergraduate and graduate art programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, some that you've seen in years past, some that are exhibiting in Madison for the first time, and some that are new members of the Steenbock committee!!


OPENING RECEPTION: April 15, 5-9pm

Final thoughts on the National Juried Exhibition

After full days of accepting works, hanging the show and meeting with Andy to select his awards, we're happy to announce that the first Steenbock National Juried Exhibition is open, and is gorgeous. We could not be prouder of the work presented here, by photographers from near and far, or of the decisions that Andy made in selecting both the overall exhibit and his awards.

And speaking of awards:

FIRST PLACE
 ($500 and a 2012 solo exhibit at the Steenbock)
Nate Mathews

SECOND PLACE
($250)
Carsten Meier

THIRD PLACE
($100)
Kate Wichlinski

We truly hope to see you at the opening this Friday, March 4 from 6-9pm, and hope you have a chance to spend time with the exhibition outside of the melee of an opening reception.  The work is strong and contemporary, and is an incredibly strong showing for our first National foray.  Thank you so much for supporting the gallery through your entry and your patronage, and the Center for Photography at Madison, and we hope to see more of your work in the future.