Biographies of 2004 Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship Award Winners in Media Arts and Visual Arts
Jennifer Montgomery, Filmmaker
Milwaukee
Jennifer Montgomery started making films in 1987, bringing to filmmaking her interest in writing and painting portraits. “The interpersonal nature of filmmaking was what initially caused me to slip off the page and canvas and onto celluloid. If I had to summarize the nature of my films, it would be an abiding interest in the problems of interpersonal relations,” says Montgomery. Montgomery received her MFA in filmmaking from Bard College, Annandale, NY in 1993. Since then she has taught at the School of Visual Arts, the Cooper Union School of Art, Barnard College in NYC; and at Hampshire College in MA. She was also a visiting artist at Vermont College. In 1999, Montgomery moved to Milwaukee shortly after she started teaching at Northwestern University in Evanston and Columbia College in Chicago, IL. “I moved to Milwaukee from New York City, in large part because of the vibrant, idiosyncratic community I found here, and Threads of Belonging (2003) is in part an homage to that group,” said Montgomery. Montgomery’s experimental and narrative films have been screened in Milwaukee and Madison WI, Chicago IL, Ann Arbor MI, New York City NY, Boston MA, San Francisco and Los Angeles CA and London UK among other locations. Montgomery has garnered the Best Experimental Film Award in 2001 and a Finishing Funds Award in 2002 from the Chicago Underground Film Festival; and in both 1997 and 1996 she was a finalist for the “Someone to Watch Award” at the IFP Independent Spirit Awards. Montgomery was the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship in 1996-1997, a MacDowell Colony fellowship in 1992 and Art Matters fellowships in 1989 and 1990. In addition she received Jerome Foundation Grants in 1994-1992.Terese Agnew, Fiber
Milwaukee
Terese Agnew began her art career as a public sculptor. Her early work included several temporary installations that engaged hundreds of people in the art making process. Her permanent works in the area include The Wisconsin Workers Memorial in downtown Milwaukee at Zeidler Union Square (1995), created in collaboration with Mary Zebell, and 35 large concrete sculptures of tree stumps arranged as an informal amphitheater at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield. In 1991 Agnew began making art quilts in addition to sculpture. Her quilts are intricately detailed and intensely embroidered using a process that she describes as “drawing with thread.” Agnew’s quilts are included in permanent collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, The Milwaukee Art Museum and the John M Walsh III Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts. Her quilts are also in several books, most notably The Art Quilt by Robert Shaw. In 2002 she was included in a show at the Milwaukee Art Museum entitled On Nature: Five Wisconsin Artists. Agnew’s current project: Portrait of a Textile Worker is an art quilt being constructed entirely out of thousands of donated clothing labels and will be unveiled at the Wilson Center in January 2005.John Balsley, Sculpture
Brown Deer
John Balsley works in a wide range of materials and techniques and is both a painter and a sculptor. During his career he has received several awards and grants including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. His work has been included in approximately 200 exhibitions including the Chicago Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. His gallery affiliations include the Allan Stone Gallery, New York, Perimeter Gallery in Chicago, and the Red Car Gallery in Milwaukee. His work was recently exhibited in 2003 at Chicago Art Expo, SOFA Chicago, The Red Car Gallery, Milwaukee, The University of Hawaii, Manoa Art Gallery, and the Kaohsiuing Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan. Mr. Balsley’s work will be included in forthcoming exhibitions in Guam, Japan, Canada, and Mexico. He is presently preparing work for a one person exhibition at the Red Car Gallery to be be held in December of 2004. John Balsley is presently a professor of art in the UWM Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts where he has taught since 1976.Kim Cridler, Sculpture
Sheboygan
Trained as a metalsmith, Kim creates works that utilize the history, making, and meaning of craft and domestic ornamentation. A past resident of the John Michael Kohler Art Centers Arts/Industry program, Kim currently works for JMKAC as the A/I Coordinator. An undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Kim earned an MFA in Metals from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and studied at Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting. Kim has taught in art programs across the country including University of Michigan, San Diego State University, Arizona State University, and Penland School of Crafts. She was the recipient of a 1999 Visual Arts Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and recently exhibited her work in a solo exhibition at the Lawrence University Gallery in Appleton, the 2003 Wisconsin Artists Biennial in Madison, and has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Eisentrager/Howard Gallery at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.Susan Dupor, Painting
Lake Geneva
Susan Dupor lives in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where she paints in her studio and teaches art at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf. She grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where she attended mainstream programs for deaf and hard of hearing children from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Dupor earned her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She then worked in an animation studio before going on to earn a Masters of Science in Deaf Education and Art Education through a joint program at the University of Rochester and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Dupor’s work has been included in many group exhibitions including the national touring exhibition, “Elements of a Culture: Visions by Deaf Artists”; “20 Deaf Artists: A common Motif” at Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland, CA; and “Seeing Through Deaf Eyes” at the Blue Mountain Gallery in the Chelsea district in New York City. Her most recent group exhibition was with the Artemisia Gallery mentorship group at the Northern Illinois University Art Gallery in Chicago. Dupor also had solo exhibits at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., Edgewood College in Madison, WI, and Bailiwick Arts Center in Chicago.Briony Jean Foy, Crafts
Madison
Briony Jean Foy is a studio fiber artist and teacher living in Madison, WI. Her work includes one-of-a-kind fiber installation and wall pieces, as well as shawls and scarves. She has exhibited nationally (WI, MI, NC, CA, IL and NY) and internationally (China and Korea). In 2002 she was awarded the David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Graduate Fellowship For a Woman In the Arts for the UW Arts Institute. Ms. Foy has taught fiber and design courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and also offers private and group workshops.Nancy Mladenoff, Painting
Madison
Nancy Mladenoff is a visual artist/painter whose work explores a conceptual approach to ideas concerning nature. She is interested in the process of how humans transform nature into culture through an effort to understand its meaning. Her work involves a mixed-media approach to painting which includes site-specific wall painting and digital photography. Her paintings were recently featured in the fall issue of New American Paintings which was juried by Stacie Boris, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Recent exhibitions include Photo LA in Santa Monica, CA; Ten in One Gallery, New York; The Beaker Gallery, Tampa, FL; Aron Packer Gallery, Chicago, IL; Waldkunstpfad (Forest Art Path) Darmstadt, Germany; Milwaukee Art Museum; Madison Art Center; and Wendy Cooper Gallery in Madison, WI.Mark Mulhern, Painting
Milwaukee
Mark Mulhern’s work focuses on the human figure and temporality. “I enjoy watching people, how they move or express their inner states through their unselfconscious body language,” says Mulhern. “The way clothing wrinkles when someone sits or walks or the way a person distributes their weight interests me. I want the viewer of my work to form an empathetic relationship with the figures in my paintings and carry this into their lives. I am trying to make very slow paintings that require and reward patient looking.” His paintings were recently featured in New York, Milwaukee, Kohler and at the Wisconsin Triennial in Madison. Selected collections of Mark’s painting are at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Milwaukee Art Museum and at the Elvehjem Museum in Madison.
Contact: Mark Fraire, 608/264-8191
Date Posted: 2/4/04
