Wisconsin Triennial Brochure 2019

SHANE WALSH MILWAUKEE
Xpressor 3, 2016 • Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 58 inches • Courtesy of the artist
and The Alice Wilds Gallery, Milwaukee and Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York
While large in scale, Shane Walsh’s paintings start out as small-scale collages
constructed from photocopies of various marks and shapes he collects. He
then fastidiously transmits these collaged, transformed images by hand with
acrylic paint onto canvas. Redefining the art historical notion of painterly
abstraction, Walsh paints large scale brushstrokes such that they appear
as if they’ve been carelessly passed through a photocopier — warped and
echoing the familiar visual palette of the Xerox machine. While the viewer
might see large, expressive brushstrokes from afar, up close one sees an
almost digital color field, devoid of any painterly gesture. Walsh subverts our
expectations of what abstraction means and can mean, imbuing modernist
inclinations of the canvas with a contemporary interpretation, and very
deliberately referencing the history of abstraction.
DELLA WELLS MILWAUKEE
My Rainbow Makes Me Dance, 2019 • Collage on paper, 16 x 12 inches •
Courtesy of the artist and Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee
Della Wells employs the medium of collage to construct fractured and
whimsical compositions. Together, her works reveal an imaginary world
she refers to as “Mambo Land,” a dynamic environment which serves as
an arena for women and girls to take control of their own fears. In Haitian
Vodou religion, a Mambo is a female priestess, one who often performs
healing works and guides others throughout complex rituals. Similarly,
in Wells’s collages, women are the predominant figures, presiding over
each scene. In Mambo Land, there is no fixed point of reference; scales
shift, people and animals fly, children rule, monsters thrive, and daily
routines are given a sense of staggering importance. These collages create
a subverted world, utilizing symbolism such as American flags, highway
signs, state buildings, and chickens, to offer a complex commentary on
what it means to be a Black woman in this current political moment.
9