RAM Artist Fellowship Exhibition 2019: Presented by the Osborne and Scekic Foundation
Meant to showcase the diversity and vitality of the Racine/Kenosha visual arts community, the biennial fellowships provide support for the professional development of the area’s artists.
RAM Artist Fellowship Exhibition 2019: Presented by the Osborne and Scekic Foundation
Racine, WI July 18, 2019
Opening at RAM’s Wustum Museum of Fine Arts with a reception on August 22, the RAM Artist Fellowship Exhibition 2019 Sponsored by the Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation offers a series of concurrent solo shows featuring the work of four area artists—Alex Mandli, Amy Misurelli Sorensen, Crystal Neubauer, and Marilyn Propp—who were recipients of RAM Artist Fellowships in 2018. With that honor comes a $2,500 stipend that may be used for any expenses that assist in the development of new work and advance their artistic careers. The shows continue through November 16, 2019.
Meant to showcase the diversity and vitality of the Racine/Kenosha visual arts community, the biennial fellowships provide support for the professional development of the area’s artists. The exhibition presents a sampling of the dynamic visual arts scene in this corner of southeastern Wisconsin.
About the Artists
Born in 1952 in Racine, Wisconsin, Alex Mandli has lived in Southeastern Wisconsin for most of his life. Though Mandli took art classes at the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts as a child, it was a ceramics class in his first year of college at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh that really sparked his interest in pottery. There he studied under ceramics professor Paul Donhauser and with ceramicist Warren MacKenzie, who was an artist-in-residence there briefly.
After completing his BA in Art Education at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside, Mandli taught in area schools on and off until 2011. In 1978, he established his first studio in Kenosha, moving to his current home and studio in Racine in 1988. After working intermittently over twenty years with ceramics professor Phil Powell at Carthage College, he earned his master’s degree in 2004.
Over his 40 years as a potter, Mandli has received two Wisconsin Arts Board Grants as an artist-in-residence, participated in the Smithsonian Craft Show multiple times, and shown his work in exhibitions and galleries both nationally and internationally.
Crystal Neubauer is a self-taught artist. After a career in the printing industry, she turned to art full time. In the past 15 years Neubauer has hosted workshops all over the United States and will be teaching at the upcoming Fiber Arts Conference in Australia in the spring of 2020. In 2018, she participated in the Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design (SOFA) Fair in Chicago as a guest of an international gallery.
The author of The Art of Expressive Collage: Techniques for Creating with Paper and Glue, published in 2015 by North Light Books, Neubauer has also written articles for and been featured in numerous other books, publications, and podcasts. She also has her own video series on the art of collage. Neubauer is currently represented by galleries in Seattle, Washington; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Chicago, Illinois. Her work can be found in private and corporate collections across the country. In October 2015, she moved to the Racine/Kenosha area where she continues to work.
Raised in upstate New York, Marilyn Propp is an artist/educator whose work has been exhibited in museums and commercial and university galleries throughout the US and Mexico. She attended Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Brooklyn Museum Art School, Provincetown Workshop, and San Francisco Art Institute’s pre-MFA program; and holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA from the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Propp has undertaken Residencies/Visiting Artist positions in Jentel, Wyoming; Cill Rialaig, Ireland; and Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico.
Propp has received numerous grants and awards, including the Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award and an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Her work can be found in many public and private collections including the Summer Palace, Saudi Arabia; the Hallmark Collection; and the AT&T Collection, Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1990, David Jones and Propp founded Anchor Graphics in Chicago. She relocated in 2016 to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where she co-founded the Center for Collaborative Research. CCR’s Press on Wheels takes printmaking and papermaking into the community, traveling throughout the Midwest region. She is currently adjunct faculty at Carthage College.
Amy Misurelli Sorensen is a contemporary artist, teacher, and curator who lives and works in Southeastern Wisconsin. She has 10 years teaching experience at the college level. After fulfilling a one-year position as Visiting Artist/Instructor in Drawing at Colorado State University, Sorensen moved back to Wisconsin to accept a vocational teaching position at the elementary level. She has been a Visiting Artist at several other national institutions including the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan, and the Loveland Art Museum, Loveland, Colorado. As a professional artist, her largest and most recent exhibition to-date was Between the Floorboards with fellow feminist artist Miriam Beerman at Montgomery College, Silver Spring, Maryland.
Having participated in multiple national and international artist residencies, Sorensen has also curated and co-curated exhibitions as the Gallery Director and Curator at The University of Wisconsin–Parkside Galleries.
Sorensen holds her MFA in Painting and Drawing from American University, Washington, DC and her BA with concentrations in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, Indiana and The LGBTQ Center of Colorado.
Preview and Opening Reception
The public is invited to meet the artists during the RAM Artist Fellowship Exhibition 2019 Preview and Opening Reception on Thursday, August 22, 5:30 – 8:30 pm at RAM’s Wustum Museum of Fine Arts. Light refreshments will be served during this free event. Wustum Museum is located at 2519 Northwestern Avenue, Racine.
Further details about this year’s featured artists as well as general information about RAM Artist Fellowships are available at the museum’s website, ramart.org.
Together, the two campuses of the Racine Art Museum, RAM in downtown Racine at 441 Main Street and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts at 2519 Northwestern Avenue, seek to elevate the stature of contemporary crafts to that of fine art by exhibiting significant works in craft media with painting, sculpture, and photography, while providing outstanding educational art programming.
Docent-led contemporary craft and architectural tours of the museums are available. Both campuses of the Racine Art Museum, are open Tuesday – Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, and are closed Mondays, Federal holidays and Easter. RAM is open Sunday Noon – 5:00 pm, while Wustum is closed Sundays. An admission fee of $7 for adults, with reduced fees for students and seniors, applies at RAM. Admission to Wustum is free. Members are always admitted without charge to either campus.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.
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