ARTservancy: Year in Review
December 29, 2024 | Topics: featured artist
2024 was the sixth year for the remarkable ARTservancy program, which pairs Wisconsin artists with nature preserves in the greater Milwaukee area.
ARTservancy is a partnership between Gallery 224 and the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, the River Revitalization Foundation, the Milwaukee Area Land Conservancy, Tall Pines Conservancy, and Lake Michigan Bird Observatory. Its mission is to promote the visionary work of both the artists and conservationists.
The artists each visit their selected preserve during the course of a year, making art works based on their observations and experiences with the sites. Their work is then exhibited the following year at Gallery 224 in Port Washington.
As we have been doing since its inception, The Natural Realm has featured the artists in residence. Each featured artist provided their own Artist Narrative and a selection of their artworks, as well as biographical information. This recap is a very brief look at them, including just two images per artist, one portrait in situ at their preserve and a single image representative of their artwork. The titles link back to the original featured stories so that you can see more of their work and read their narratives. They are in alphabetical order by last names.
Hector Acuna at Bratt Woods Preserve in Grafton
Jordan Acker Anderson at Huiras Lake State Natural Area in Fredonia
John Fatica at Bratt Woods Preserve in Grafton
Craig Grabhorn at Biehl Nature Preserve in Farmington
Clare Jorgensen in the Milwaukee River Greenway in Milwaukee
Dara Larson in Turtle Park in Milwaukee
Benjamin Pollock in Estabrook Park in Shorewood
Darlene Wesenberg Rzezotarski in Estabrook Park in Shorewood
Amanda Tollefson at Oconomowoc River Conservancy Park in Merton
Ally Wilber at Forest Beach Migratory Preserve in Port Washington
Federico Uribe: Metamorphosis: Nature, Plastic, Bullets … Art!
While the ARTservancy artist in residence program certainly makes up the bulk of our featured artists in The Natural Realm, they are not necessarily the only ones. This only happened once in 2024, but occasionally an exhibit of work by an artist dealing with themes related to nature comes along that is especially compelling. That is definitely the case with Federico Uribe, an artist of international renown, who had an exhibit at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. His sculptures of wild animals made of the bullets that are used to hunt them are quite sobering and his reef–which fills a small room–made entirely of throw-away plastics is a tour de force.
This Year in Review devoted especially to our featured artists of 2024 is in addition to our regular Year in Review: Stories and photos from The Natural Realm in 2024.
All photos of the artists by Eddee Daniel. All images of artworks courtesy of the artists.