2023
SCISSORS IS OUR LOVE LANGUAGE
DIANE CHRISTIANSEN + JESSIE MOTT
December 2, 2023 – February 17, 2024
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Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Scissors is Our Love Language, featuring both collaborative and solo work by Chicago-based artists Diane Christiansen and Jessie Mott.
The works in the exhibition were created throughout 2022-2023 in Christiansen’s studio. Working side by side most weeks, the artists accessed each other’s studio remnants—unfinished drawings, paintings that never quite came together, collage scraps— to create new works. Often, Christiansen and Mott would trade the pieces back and forth, trusting each other’s decisions to alter, transform, and sometimes eviscerate the original form. The resulting collages capture a spirit of playfulness alongside the tension of letting go.
Their hybrid visual language often references a body in an abstracted space, creating small worlds wherein elements of humor and melancholy mingle. The dominant medium in both Christiansen and Mott’s practice is water-based media on paper and each has a history of working in animation, some of which will be screened in this exhibition. The artists are also practicing social workers, which they believe provides an added dimension to the heart and joy of their collaborative practice.
Diane Christiansen is a visual artist, musician and social worker. Her interdisciplinary creative practice uses painting ,drawing , animation and large- scale installations to explore her fascination with impermanence, birth, death, decay and interconnectedness. Christiansen acknowledges life's essential impermanence as well as its durable illusion of solidity. In her worldview, all phenomenon are alive. Prehistoric cave paintings, Betty Boop cartoons and cracks in the sidewalk all prove that magic is everywhere.
Collaboration has become an increasingly important part of her practice. Christiansen created BirthDeathBreath, an inflatable opera , with artist Jeanne Dunning that exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Elmhurst Art Museum, and the Armory in Pasadena. Works created with Detroit based Shoshanna Utchenik , including “Notes to Nonself ”was exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago,Herron Galleries, Indianapolis and in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Most recently, Christiansen has been collaborating with artist Jessie Mott on a series of collages and paintings that are slated for exhibitions throughout 2024. Christiansen has exhibited extensively across the United States and in Edinburgh Scotland and her animations have been shown worldwide.
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Jessie Mott is a Chicago-based visual artist whose practice focuses on themes of identity and power by exposing unstable perceptions of the queer body. Using an array of media such as painting, drawing, and animation, she gives life to creatures that negotiate permeable boundaries. She is best known for her watercolor drawings of hybrid creatures that explore a perverse fascination with the natural world. Bound up in desire, mourning, and anxiety, her work disrupts the margins of human and animal, abstraction and figuration, and interior and exterior worlds. Mott's work has been exhibited widely, most recently with Diane Christiansen at Hawthorn Contemporary in Milwaukee, WI; with queer scholar and writer Chantal Nadeau via their collaboration Like Queer Animals at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL; and collaborative animations with artist and writer Steve Reinke, including International Film Festival Rotterdam, VIDEOEX International Experimental Film & Video Festival in Zürich and the Whitney Biennial in New York City. Mott has also participated in numerous art residencies, group and solo shows throughout the United States and abroad. Mott received a B.S. from New York University and an MFA from the department of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University.
FROM MY GARDEN
KYOUNG AE CHO
September 16, 2023 – November 19, 2023
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of From My Garden, featuring multi- material fiber-based works of Milwaukee artist Kyoung Ae Cho.
The works in the exhibition span two decades of production of Cho’s work, celebrating and in conversation with nature. The intimate use of natural elements combined with her keen recognition of the beauty and materiality of the objects invites the viewers to get closer to the works. Thus forging a unique and personal relationship between the audience and the work. Cho’s work compels the viewer to understand humans' inseparable relationship with nature. She says, “I learned to look at nature with love and respect since we do not own nature, but we belong to
nature.”
Kyoung Ae Cho (b.1963, South Korea) is a fibers artist who is engaging in a conversation with nature, respectfully incorporating natural elements, recycled matter as well as low-valued materials, mostly which she has gathered. She earned her MFA (1992) from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and her BFA (1986) from Ducksung Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea. Cho’s work, a poetic juxtaposition of natural wonder with sensual
delight and fragile existence, has been exhibited in national and international venues including Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, WI; Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI; Muskegon Museum of Art, MI; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Gregg Museum of Art and Design, Raleigh, NC; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ; San Jose Museum of Quilts and
Textiles, San Jose, CA; Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, CO; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Carnegie Art Museum of Oxnard, CA; Deutsches Texrilmuseum Krefeld, GERMANY; Poikilo-museot, Kouvola, FINLAND; Textilemuseum, Tilburg, NETHERLANDS; National Museum of History, Taipei, TAIWAN; Cheongju Craft Museum, Cheongju, SOUTH KOREA; National Museum of Modern Art, Gwacheon, SOUTH KOREA. Cho has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Lillian Elliott Award, the Quilt National Award of Excellence, the Pollock-Krasner Grant, the UWM Foundation and Graduate School Research Award, and Wisconsin Arts Board Award Fellowship. Cho is Professor of Art & Design at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
DANCING ON MYTH’S STAGE
ZUHAL FERAIDON + APARNA SARKAR
March 18, 2023 – May 20, 2023
Opening Reception Hours: 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, March 18, 2023
Artist Talk: 7 PM
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Dancing on Myth’s Stage, exhibition featuring paintings and drawings of Zuhal Feraidon and Aparna Sarkar.
The works in the exhibition are inspired by Indo-Persian art history and cultural iconography, an influence based on each artist's personal heritage. Zuhal Feraidon was born in Afghanistan and immigrated to the US as a refugee of war in 2005; Aparna Sarkar is first-generation Indian-American. Their inherited histories are recorded through painting and drawing; they explore different facets of intersectional, evolving, and ever-growing identity through creative representation. The exhibition title comes from artist Chitra Ganesh's entry for "Myth" in Shifter Magazine’s 2016 Dictionary of the Possible, a project that reflects the questions and musings from a year of discussion amongst artists, writers, philosophers, activists, and others at the New School in New York.
In the paintings, figures swim within luminous swaths of color, fighting against the current of gradients, navigating contemporary conflicts with finesse and resilience. Mythic figures scaffold both artists’ works–characters are often in-motion and exuberant, with a dancer’s strength. They are calls to action, projections of the artists’ selves and their kin. Feraidon makes paintings in solidarity with women in Afghanistan, depicting Afghan women in resilience and power. Sarkar is interested in the shapeshifting body: she plays with gender and queer desire in her iconic forms and allows color and mark to sometimes take over until the abstracted structure of a painting obliterates its legible figuration. There’s an honoring of the elements in both artists’ paintings: the ancient currents of earth, fire, air, and water run deep. Transparencies can describe the permeability of the barrier between past and present, the diaphanous traces of ancestry that remain in the new ways we live and think.
Zuhal Feraidon received her undergraduate degree in Studio Arts from The University of Virginia (UVA) and her MFA in Painting from The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She currently teaches as an Assistant Professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Her select exhibition record in the United States includes Monya Rowe Gallery and Field Projects Gallery in New York City, Glendale Central Library California, The Rhode Island Convention Center, and IX Art Park Virginia among others. Her work has been featured by The University of Edinburgh's The Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Scotland, U.K. She has been published in a book titled "The Art of Being Dangerous: Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression" by Leuven University Press in Belgium. She is a member of Women Forward International’s Arts Advisory Committee and Counsel based in Washington, DC. She is a recipient of The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design Fellowship.
Aparna Sarkar holds an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA in Mathematics from Pomona College. Her awards include selection for the 2022 Saatchi Art Rising Stars Report, a 2022 residency at the Jentel Foundation, inclusion in the 2019 editorial selection of Art Maze Magazine, and the 2018 Meredith Morabito and Henrietta Mantooth Full Fellowship. She works and teaches in Brooklyn, NY.
GRASPING TENDERNESS:
EXPLORATIONS OF QUEER JOY & FREEDOM, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING
June 9, 2023 – August 27, 2023
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Grasping Tenderness, featuring contemporary artists that explore queer joy and freedom, in spite of everything. The exhibition, curated by Monica Miller, is in conjunction with QKE, a city-wide collaboration uniting MKE’s art galleries and institutions to platform, exhibit and hold space for queer art during Pride month. Participating artists include: Borealis, Chris Banez, Vaughan Larsen, Daniel Arthur Mendoza, and Rosy Sunshine.
In an increasingly policed and politicized social and political climate, Grasping Tenderness emerges to celebrate and honor the profound importance of visible queer identity and community. The exhibited artists explore themes of identity, access, love, agency, and longing, offering a contemporary visual perspective on the lived experiences within the current political challenges that confront LGBTQA+ individuals. With a focus on both two-dimensional and installation works, Grasping Tenderness aims to provide a lens through which queer joy and freedom are vividly visualized and contextualized.
Christian Bañez (he/him) explores themes of self-discovery, reflection, and narrative in his practice. Utilizing methods of journaling and introspection, he creates scenes and imagery that symbolize the themes he’s exploring such as his queer identity, the immigrant experience, and his upbringing in the rural Midwest. By showcasing his thoughts and sharing his past he wants to establish a connection with others with a similar lived experience.
Christian was born in Cebu City, Philippines and raised in rural Missouri. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY after receiving his BFA from Missouri Western State University in 2022. He’s completed artist residencies with the New York Academy of Art and the East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU).
https://christianbanez.com/
Borealis (they/them/beau/bo) co-produces works rooted in the queer art of care. Beau is a trans, disabled social artist, full-spectrum careworker, and member of artist collective Solarpunk Surf Club. Learn more about their work at www.linktr.ee/mxborealis
Rosy Sunshine Galvan (she/her/ella) is a Queer, Dominican-American artist from the pre-gentrified, Lower East Side of Manhattan, currently residing in Baltimore. Her art centers vulnerable conversations and healing. The bright colors, sharp lines, and animated dots conjure joy and connection for liberation while compassionately representing the desire to mask mental illness and complex trauma. Sunshine's work is designed to lift the vibrational frequency of its viewers as an antidote to oppressive stifling forces that dull our shine and keep us in a state of shame. Her paintings are purposefully textured for an interactive, sensory, and tactile experience, inviting the audience to touch the pieces and break traditional barriers between subject and viewer.
https://www.rosysunshinepaints.com/
Vaughan Larsen received their BFA in Photography from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Later that year, they placed First in the Getty Images 2019 International Creative Bursary Award, first prize in the Amsterdam Pride Photo Award, and was named a 2019 Fellow by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary Nohl Fellowship. Their work has been shown throughout Wisconsin, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Pratt MWP’s campus gallery, and Europe. Their work has been written about in several publications, including Humble Arts Foundation. Larsen has presented at the Paul Brach Lecture Series at CalArts in 2021. They are now preparing their first solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
Larsen is a co-founder of FxG Church, a DIY queer party in Milwaukee. They are also the founder and curator of That Way, an online platform and printed zine started in 2018, featuring the work of LGBTQ+ artists globally. In 2021, Larsen was the sole-organizer and co-curator of Queering the Cream City, a month-long exhibition taking place on 12 billboards in Milwaukee replacing advertising with LGBTQ+ art.
https://www.vaughanlarsen.com/
Daniel Arthur Mendoza (b. 1989, Sacramento, California) received his MFA from UC Riverside in 2022. In 2013 he received a BA in Studio Art at UC Davis, and attended the Chautauqua Institution Schools of the Fine and Performing Arts in Chautauqua, New York. His work has been exhibited at The Mistake Room (Los Angeles, CA), Human Resources Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), Southern Exposure (San Francisco, CA), Rivalry Projects (Buffalo, NY), Guerrero Gallery (San Francisco, CA), and Incline Gallery (San Francisco, CA) among others. He is based in the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area.
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.
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Monica Miller (she/they) is an artist and cultural producer based in Milwaukee, WI. With a passion for bringing creatives together, Monica's work revolves around the accessibility and creation of equitable, collaborative environments for artists. With extensive experience in gallery and public art curation and management, Monica has a strong background in professional development, creative entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, and event planning.
Monica has over five years of facilitation experience, working with diverse groups and organizations. Since 2017, they have served as an educator, coach, and mentor for both emerging and mid-level career creatives, advocating for individuals to pioneer and sustain their own businesses. They specialize in working with artists, designers, and other creatives, as well as womxn/femme and non-binary individuals, and queer communities. Monica has held various leadership positions within arts and culture non-profits, including the former Institute of Visual Arts (INOVA) gallery, the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, the Greater Milwaukee Committee's Beerline Trail Neighborhood Development Project, Wormfarm Institute, and more. She currently works at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design as the Manager for MIAD Gallery at The Ave, the college’s first off-campus gallery aimed to support students, alumni, faculty & staff.
Combining their expertise in cultural production, curation, and education, Miller continues to make a profound impact on the art community in Milwaukee and beyond. With a strong belief in the power of collaboration and equity, Monica strives to create spaces where artists can thrive and contribute to a more vibrant artistic landscape.
HERE COMES THAT FEELING
kg
Opening Reception 6 PM - 9 PM, Saturday, Dec 3, 2022
December 3, 2022 – March 3, 2023
Hawthorn Contemporary is pleased to announce the exhibition opening of Here Comes That Feeling
featuring fiber works of Chicago-based artist kg.
Intertwining weavings and objects, Here Comes That Feeling, reveals the daily narratives of kg. Life's complications with conflicting emotions and thoughts are unfurled through a series of weavings that intermingle textiles and objects. Individual work’s material list becomes “poetic texts” adding insight into kg’s contemplation and questioning of life’s noteworthy moments. They state, “My studio is a site full of embodied personal history. I make weavings, sculpture, and poetry using the logic of memoir”.
kg (b.1980, Poland) makes weavings and writes poetry in Chicago. kg has exhibited with Horse and Pony in Berlin, Side gate Gallery in Melbourne, The Salina Art Center and UMKC Gallery Of Art in Kansas, HiLo Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, Praxis Fiber Workshop in Ohio, SideCar Gallery in Indiana, Adjunct Positions in L.A. , Left Field Gallery in San Luis Obispo CA, L.O.G. in Chapel Hill North Carolina, Camayuhs in Atlanta, The Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Bruce High Quality Foundation in New York, The Poor Farm in Little Wolfe Wisconsinand with LVL3, Julius Caesar, Terrain, Tiger Strikes Astroid, Tusk, AddsDonna, Gallery 400, Ralph Arnold Fine Arts Gallery at Loyola University, The Ukrainian, Institute of Modern Art, Dock 6 Design studios, The Suburban at the MDW Art Fair 2012 and again with LVL3 and The Unpacked Truck Gallery as part of MDW Fair’s return in 2022, Hyde Park Art Center and at LOLLAPALOOZA Music Festival, all in Chicago. kg was a participant at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2017 and The Vermont Studio Center as a fellow in 2018. Their expansive weaving survey Some Kind Of Duty, hosted by The DePaul Art Museum is available as a monograph through the museum shop and online.
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