OUT OF THE WILD: new work by Cassandra Smith

Sky High Gallery presents:

"Out of the Wild" new work by Cassandra Smith

April 19 - June 1, 2013

Opening reception: Friday April 19th, 6-10pm, artist will be attendance

Sky High Gallery is pleased to present new work by Cassandra Smith, an artist and designer working in Milwaukee, WI. She is also the co-owner and editor of Fine Line Magazine, an international fine arts publication. In 2006, she graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design with a degree in Sculpture.

After graduating, Cassandra co-owned the now defunct Armoury Gallery which exhibited contemporary work by local and national emerging artists. She has also curated several visual art exhibitions in the Milwaukee area. Among other places, her work has been show at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Paper Boat Gallery, the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts and the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh. Cassandra’s current body of work, hand-painted deer antlers, has been featured by Anthropology, US Weekly and Better Homes & Gardens.

STATEMENT

My work  is about manipulations and transformation. It is about exploring the ways that I can enhance and change found objects to give them something they did not have in their former life. I find a certain beauty in imposing my aesthetic, specifically color and pattern, onto natural or worn objects. I am fascinated by the dichotomy between organic and geometric shapes, the contrast between natural and synthetic. I strive to enhance these objects while respecting the inherent qualities that drew me to them in the first place.

Artist website: www. cassandra-smith.com

For additional information or press images contact curator Faythe Levine, faythelevine@gmail.com

Little Friends: Milwaukee's Worst

Little Friends: Milwaukee's Worst
New work by The Little Friends of Printmaking
March 15 - April 7, 2013

Opening reception: Friday, March 22nd 6-10pm
Artists will be in attendance selling cash & carry editioned prints

Sky High Gallery is pleased to present a new body of work by Milwaukee based print duo THE LITTLE FRIENDS OF PRINTMAKING. This show is being presented in association with the 2013 Southern Graphics Conference.

Artist's BIO:
You can easily spot The Little Friends of Printmaking in a crowd—their inky hands and clothes are a dead giveaway. Their work is just as distinctive. JW & Melissa Buchanan first made a name for themselves through their silkscreened concert posters, but soon branched out into further fields, designing fancy junk for whoever would pay them money. In addition to their work as illustrators and designers, they've continued their fine art pursuits through exhibitions, lectures, and artists’ residencies, spreading the gospel of silkscreen to anyone inclined to listen. Their awards include honors from the Art Directors’ Club, American Illustration, and Communication Arts; their work has been published in the books New Masters of Poster Design [Rockport], Juxtapoz: Poster Art [Gingko Press], and Handmade Nation [Princeton Architectural Press], among others.

MINI-STATEMENT:
Our aesthetic is broadly influenced by the silkscreen process and its idiosyncrasies-- We love its flatness; the interplay between ink layers; its bold immediacy and its capacity for subtlety. We try to imbue our print designs with a playful looseness that leads the viewer to consider the process by which the print was created, in order to demystify the process and reaffirm the qualities that make screenprints desirable and unique among works on paper.
For us, the definitions of Art and Design have become interchangeable. We work primarily as printmakers, but also take on design projects from outside collaborators. We've charted an alternate course for ourselves somewhere between Art and Design, without drawing a bright line of distinction between them.

 

Additional press materials & images available upon request.

Getting By in the Foreverscape

Getting By in the Foreverscape: New work by Colin Matthes

January 18- March 10, 2013

Join us for the opening reception Gallery Night January 18, 6-10pm. Artist will be in attendance.

Getting By in the Foreverscape 

Colin Matthes makes work about engineering the absurd, which allows him to address economic and environmental crisis from a funny, critical, fatalistic, and industrious point of view. His upcoming exhibition, Getting By in the Foreverscape, is influenced by empty places and harsh weather. Featuring drawings made while in residence at Cow House Studios in Wexford Ireland and the release of the limited edition poster set, Essential Knowledge: Volume 1 this is Matthes’s first solo exhibition in Milwaukee since 2008. Within this exhibition the viewer will find advertising, questionable science, obsessiveness, paranoid ramblings, and genuine concern laced with humor. 

Colin Matthes’s drawing based multi-disciplinary practice includes painting, object making,installation, public art projects, and zine and graphic production. Arts writer Rafael Salas described his work as, “heartwarming, nostalgic, and full of humor despite its grim prognosis.” He works collectively with Justseeds, a decentralized network of twenty-six artists living in the US, Canada, and Mexico. They run a print collective, produce portfolios, contribute graphics to movements, co-publish books, and build installations. Matthes, based in Milwaukee, WI, has exhibited across Europe and the United States, including solo-exhibitions at Artspace Leguit, Antwerp, Belgium and Igloo Gallery, Portland, Oregon, and group exhibitions at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and the Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee, WI. He has completed numerous residency programs including Hotel Pupik (Austria), Werkkamp (Belgium), Cow House Studios (Ireland), Harold Arts (USA), and AS220 (USA). Colin’s upcoming projects include exhibitions at Monster Truck, Dublin, Ireland and El Butron, Seville, Spain.

Above image: Moving On: ink, acrylic, gouache, and flasche on paper, 40x58in, 2012

THIRD ANNUAL "ALL SORTS" HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE

"ALL SORTS" limited edition prints by Jessica Seamans will be available.

We will be kicking off our season at Art vs. Craft NOV 24. After that join us for our open house NOV 30th 5-10pm and enjoy hot cider & friends. The ALL SORTS boutique will be open in the gallery regular shop hours for the month of DEC. Remember, we only order in small batches so come early to pick out your selections. 

We couldn't be more excited about the list of designers we are working with this year here are a few to wet your whistle:

Danmala // Cards
Stone & Honey // Jewelry
Erin Smith // Jewelry
Wilder // Magazine
Uniforma // Accessories
David Scheid // Stained Glass
Ben Fiess // Ceramics
Nikki McClure // Calendars
Kaye Blegvad // Jewelry
ALL Knitwear // Hats
Jeremy Rendina // Moon Calendars & Stationary
Santa Fe Stoneworks // Knives

Jessica Seamans // Prints
The Wild Unknown // Tarot Cards

We will also have signed copies of Sign Painters in stock, gallery curator Faythe Levine & Sam Macon's new book published by Princeton Architectural Press

+ Special ALL SORTS gallery edition: Tapestries by artist and designer Hannah Waldron will be on display NOV-DEC 31, 2012

KURUKURU, 2012 // 36 cm x 60 cm // various yarns

Photographs by Daniel and Samuel

In the gallery October 19- November 25, 2012

Join us on October 19th for the opening reception 6-10pm both Sam & Daniel will be in attendance.



Daniel Arnold and Sam Macon have been friends for years. They've been taking pictures for just about as long. Photographs by Daniel and Samuel is their first combined show featuring images created, accumulated and captured over recent years. The work documents a wide array of people, places and experience. Daniel is a photographer and writer living in Brooklyn NY, and Sam works as a film director in Chicago IL. They both originally hail from Milwaukee WI.

Check out more of their work: Samuel Macon & Daniel Arnold

Turkish Gold: New work by Jourdon Gullett

“Turkish Gold" New work by Jourdon Gullett

September 8^th - October 14^th, 2012

Opening Reception: Saturday September 8^th 4pm-10pm 

Beer tasting 6-8pm with Brenner Brewery

Chicago based artist Jourdon Gullett  works with layered materials, including wood, wallpaper and other found paper materials. His work has recently been exhibited at Jennifer Norback Gallery, Chicago Urban Art Society, Johalla Projects, and The Believe Inn. Currently he works with ASM, and CPAG doing public art in Chicago and full time/illustrations with a Brewery, Solemn Oath Brewery. Gullett is also collaborating with Jesse Neuhaus, launching Bluetown Skateboards.

Gullett’s work is heavily influenced by his surroundings. A recent trip to Instanbul resulted in hundreds of photos to use as fodder for his upcoming show at Sky High Gallery. Combinations of found and new materials are used to create organic hand cut shapes out of plywood. Using the photos from the trip he cropped, pasted, and layered detailed montages of people, buildings, patterns and other Turkish goods.

The Trading Tortoise

Sky High Gallery is very excited to be hosting the Trading Tortoise in Milwaukee. 

Please bring something to trade and join us July 5th from 6pm-9pm, outside weather permitting (inside if we get rain or it's sweltering) for this  family friendly event.

The Trading Tortoise tour organized by artists Souther Salazar & Monica Choy. They developed this traveling art project with the goal to create a unique community experience while exploring America through objects and stories. Their sculptural installation will be set up at Sky High Gallery in the form of a large tortoise-shaped trading post.

At each stop the public is invited to bring an object, story or creation and exchange it for something else special we’ve found or traded for along the way. They hope to connect people in different places in America in this way, through a network of traded treasures and a mutual love of giving and receiving in a non-monetary exchange. Every person has a unique object or story that only they can bring to this project. Each item we receive will be tagged with the person’s name, location, and a number and documented on their website so people can follow our trades and see where their item eventually traveled to.

The Trading Tortoise will be participating in additional creative events in the communities we visit when possible, such as Souther’s solo art show and talk at Narwhal Projects in Toronto and collaborative mural project planned for Children’s Hospital Boston. In between the scheduled events, they will be exploring along the way and documenting the overall adventure on the blog with photos, videos, and artwork, as well as in a series of 5 printed Trading Tortoise zines.

The adventure culminates in an art show Souther has scheduled for May 2013 at Jonathan

Levine Gallery in New York City. The art show will feature a new body of work including paintings, drawings, and an on-site installation of sculptures inspired by our trades and travels.

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE STOP. 

TELL YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS, PUBLIC INVITE HERE. 

For additional information, photos & their national tour list visit: www.tradingtortoise.com

Local media contact: Curator, faythelevine@gmail.com