A reception for the Grohmann Museum’s newest special exhibition, Dave Clay’s Industrial Atmospheres, will be held on the same evening as Gallery Night Milwaukee, featuring a Gallery Talk with the artist himself at 7:00 p.m.

Milwaukee native Dave Clay is an artist, software architect, engineer, and musician. Now hailing from Seattle, he works in a variety of media including digital collage, metal, large-scale interactive sculpture, and painting. Among his diverse body of work, Clay’s industrial landscapes stand out as particularly novel and captivating. Though he works in a high-tech field, he is both drawn to and moved by the most elemental of industrial processes.

Clay’s industrial paintings are at once exquisite, shadowy, and other-worldly. They provide a virtual sensory experience, in which we not only see, but can almost feel the heat and smell the steam and smoke of the mills, foundries, and forge shops he captures. These industrial landscapes and interiors provide an amazing opportunity for the Museum and its patrons as a compelling start to our 2026 exhibition season.