2020 - 2021
WHERE THE EYES FALL
MAEVE JACKSON & DANIEL MCCULLOUGH
June 26, 2021 – August 28, 2021
​
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, June 26, 2021
(Opening reception will be in person and masks and face coverings are not required for those who are vaccinated. Non-vaccinated visitors must wear a mask during the reception.)
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of WHERE THE EYES FALL featuring the works by Milwaukee based artists Maeve Jackson and Daniel McCullough.
Jackson and McCullough explore different concepts which drive their photographic practices.
Jackson alludes to specificity in narratives often depicting images of people and landscapes but allows the viewers to insert their own histories to individualize the meaning. Her approach is humanistic and generous and asks viewers to self-reflect and re-evaluate their relationship to the world. McCullough investigates the conceptual gaps between the lens of a camera to the outside world. These gaps represent opportunities for the artist to take playful risks, often without knowing the outcome of the work. Using a traditional film camera, he intentionally disrupts the film developing or alters the prescribed processing techniques to abstract the representation of time and place.
Maeve Jackson is a Milwaukee based artist with a nomadic sensibility. As she travels her making space shifts based where she resides. Jackson is resistant to being limited to any single medium though she prefers working with the platforms of video, photography, and site specific installations. Her work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions in Milwaukee, as well as Brooklyn, NY; Greensboro College, NC; Chicago,IL, Barcelona, Spain, and southern Austria. She has been featured in exhibitions at John Michael Kohler Art Center (Sheboygan, WI); and locally at (the once) Dean Jensen Gallery, VAR Gallery, and Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel; with solo exhibitions at The Alice Wilds and Lawrence University's Wriston Art Galleries. She has attended the artist-in-residence programs: Hotel Pupik (2016 & 2019), in southern Austria; and Cow House Studios Open Residency Program (2019) in Wexford, Ireland. Her film, "the beautiful", screened across the USA after it's 2017 premiere. Jackson is currently working on her next film, a non-traditional documentary about her family's farmland.
Daniel McCullough is a visual artist and photographer based in Milwaukee, WI. Daniel received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2018, and was a Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists finalist in 2018 and 2019. He was selected for the Plum Blossom Initiative Bridge Work 04 Professional Development Program, 2018-2019. Daniel has shown his work both regionally and nationally and is currently represented by the Alice Wilds in Milwaukee, WI. His work is influenced by the wonder and mystery of the landscape around him.
Hawthorn Contemporary, located in the historic Walker’s Point neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is an art venue dedicated to presenting experimental and exploratory contemporary art.
​
Hawthorn Contemporary
706 South 5th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204 USA
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM Saturday, June 26, 2021
Regular Daytime Hours: 11 AM - 4 PM Friday, Saturday
​
WASH & SET
LANIA SPROLES & ARIANA VAETH
February 27, 2021 – April 16, 2021
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Wash & Set featuring works by LaNia Sproles and Ariana Vaeth. Through printmaking, drawing, and painting these two artists, who also happen to be best friends, explore ideas rooted in relationships, self-care, family, and comfort. With the exhibition (all the works created in 2020 and 2021), they state; “In the fading utilized acts of self-care, these best friends depict in their works what it looks like to pour back into their lives when given the bare bones. Their work stems from the impossibility of commemorating the ones that shape them. Wash and Set is merely preparation to fall into our softest tresses of ourselves, something much sweeter than perfecting survival.”
Sproles and Vaeth graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) in 2O17, completing a semester exchange program together through the AICAD Mobility program at the Maryland Institute College of Art the year prior. Consecutively receiving the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Grant cycle 15 and 17 in the Emerging artist category, they have a best friend status. Vaeth and Sproles are currently fulfilling their time between working in their studios, as educators and working within the art non-profit realm.
​​​​
LESLIE SMITH III
WE STILL PLAY WITH BLOCKS: PAINTINGS FROM 2014-17
Exhibition runs through February 12, 2021
​
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of We Still Play With Blocks: Paintings from 2014-17 featuring Madison, Wisconsin based painter Leslie Smith III. We Still Play With Blocks: Paintings from 2014-17 accumulates three years of work from Smith highlighting an abstract language through the use of non-traditional shaped canvas and the converging of multiple panels.
​
Smith’s unconventional approach to painting challenges the canons of contemporary abstraction. Fracturing the singular canvas into multiple connected canvases, Smith re-adjusts the viewer’s pictorial sensibilities. The individual shapes of each canvas creates both tension and connectivity within the work and gives space for interpretation from the viewer. This innovative method to the two dimensional surface cultivates emotion and understanding into interpersonal relationships which “mediates meaningful experiences by fostering curiosity and anxiety in questioning how to approach it.”
​
Leslie Smith III is an oil-based painter. His studio practice is centered on employing abstraction to communicate the poetics and nuance of a human experience. Smith received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University School of Art. Smith exhibits both national and internationally.
Recent exhibitions include paintings at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and solo exhibitions with Maus Contemporary in Birmingham, AL and Galerie Isabelle Gounod in Paris, France. His work can be found in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Smith is an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Hawthorn Contemporary, located in the historic Walker’s Point neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is an art venue dedicated to presenting experimental and exploratory contemporary art.
​
Tour Exhibition Virtually: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Zk6fDaoD9GC
​