Through Our Eyes - a UEC Showcase: Bre Legan, Jeff Veglahn, Julee Mitchell, & Katie Willmering
December 2022-February 2023
Opening Reception: December 9th, 4-6 p.m.
A collection of artwork, through many perspectives, of what we see in nature. Our perspective is expressed through illustrations, weavings, and acrylic paintings. Nature isn’t only found in vast spaces across the country, but also locally in our own neighborhoods. We hope that our exhibit will inspire and encourage you to see nature from a new perspective.
Jeff Veglahn
Jeff Veglahn is the Land Steward at Urban Ecology Center’s Menomonee Valley Branch. Growing up, he was always encouraged to draw and sketch in his free time and he continued that trend as an adult. As Land Steward, Jeff manages the day-to-day management of Three Bridges Park and monitors what plants are established in the native plant communities. Historically speaking, Wisconsin was a landscape of prairies found in Southwest Wisconsin, the Driftless Region, to conifer forests in Northern Wisconsin. In all, Wisconsin has more than 70 unique plant communities, each composed of beautiful grasses and wildflowers integral to the landscape.
American Bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum) by Jeff Veglahn
In 2018, Jeff started to sketch native plants, indigenous to Southeast Wisconsin’s prairies, found in Three Bridges Park. As you walk through Three Bridges Park, you’ll find more than 60 plants native to the area. As the seasons' change, so does the hue of the blooms from whites, to blues, to yellows. Jeff’s artwork, ink on paper, represents a small fraction of what can be found as you walk through the park during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. He hopes that his artwork encourages people to stop and look closely at the plants and flowers around them; that people don’t just walk through Three Bridges Park, but take in the beauty that surrounds them. “Anyone can love the mountains but it takes a soul to love the prairie” - Willa Cather.
Julee Mitchell
In Julee's words: "In 2019 my father and mother-in-law were in the process of becoming snowbirds, moving from Milwaukee to Florida, as many retired Wisconsinites do to escape the long Midwest winters. I was given many wonderful things during their transition to include, from my artist mother-in-law, a large number of acrylic paints. I’ve always enjoyed painting but my paint sets had been quite basic and so I limited myself to a few small canvases, carefully planning each brush stroke and conserving the few tubes of paint I had so I could be ready to paint again when inspiration struck me. After acquiring this bountiful supply of paint, I found myself happily exploring and experimenting with ideas that I hadn’t entertained before. One night as I was indulging myself in acrylics, I looked over to the trash can and saw bubble wrap and other non-recyclable materials. Suddenly I was inspired to re-use these discarded items one more time. They became the tools I used to create the backgrounds of my paintings. Once this was accomplished, I looked at the effects these materials made and the colors I had chosen to decide the subject of this series. The images of landscapes popped into my head, places I’ve been to in the past, many of which were camping experiences from my childhood. I was very lucky growing up to have had the opportunity to spend much time out in nature. Those experiences gave me a great appreciation for the natural world which continues to fill me with awe and wonder today. Although very abstract in nature, I believe each painting conveys a feeling of what it was like to be there in that moment".
One Night by Julee Mitchell
Katie Willmering
Katie Willmering is a Milwaukee-based Illustrator and Graphic Designer. Her work is created mainly in Procreate and Adobe Illustrator. At UW-Milwaukee, Katie received her Bachelor of Arts in Design Studies and studied at the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy where she focused on art history and film photography.
Katie’s artwork evokes the imagination and creates a connection between humans and nature. Growing up camping and always being encouraged to enjoy the outdoors, sculpted Katie’s love for adventure and finding beauty in the little things. She finds it so mesmerizing to study all the details of a leaf or flower and then portray that in a piece of art. Illustration allows her to stop and appreciate the little yet complex details nature beholds. Katie believes art bridges ideas between people’s minds, allowing us to show the worlds that exist in our heads, and that’s what she loves most about illustration.
Among the Wildflowers by Katie Willmering
Bre Legan
Bre Legan (they/she) is a multimedia storyteller and dreamer living and loving out of Milwaukee, WI, though they are pleased to have roots in many places. A graduate student in Communication and Digital Media at Marquette University, Bre holds degrees in art and writing from Drury University and Santa Reparata International School of Art. When they aren’t busy studying the intersections of art and social justice through the Trinity Fellows Program or creating community poetry projects through the Milwaukee Emerging Poet Fellowship, you will likely find them fiddling with an ancient typewriter, organizing with Midcoast Artist Collective, and exploring this beautiful world.
Bre’s work draws heavily from their surroundings, both in materials and ideas. Much of their supplies are naturally harvested from the beaches of the Pacific Northwest and the fields and forests of the Midwest, where overcast days and intensely vibrant wildflowers inspire creative choices. The ephemerality of natural materials in Bre’s work highlights their desire to explore the passage of time and the interconnectedness of the world we inhabit.
For more of Bre’s work, hop on over to brelegan.com
Left: Copper Driftwood, Bre Legan; Right: Midwest Sunset, Bre Legan
Rozalia Hernandez-Singh
I am me because of them — My journey of self-discovery through my ancestors
September - November 2022
Opening Reception: September 9th, 5-7 p.m.
For her entire life, Rozalia Hernandez-Singh has always struggled with finding her self-identity. Rozalia has always felt that American history books did not include people that look like her. Her ancestral story was discarded and is one that needed to be told. After starting a family of her own, it became even more important for her to know who she was. Believing a lot of the traits that we have inherited from our family even the ones that we’ve never met, led her on a journey to finding herself and her family. She began taking trips through the United States tracing the footsteps of her ancestors and seeing the communities and homes that they lived in.
Mississippi Magnolias by Rozalia Hernandez-Singh
Rozalia has made a thorough investigation of her ancestry, including finding lost ancestors, connecting with other historians, and attempting to piece together her family tree. Rozalia’s background includes Native American, Puerto Rician, African American, and Mexican ancestry. Her family has been separated through migration and difficult circumstances. Rozalia’s husband is from India which becomes part of her children's ancestry. Rozalia encourages everyone to research their family history and write and tell their own American story.
Now after many years (as well as countless days and sleepless nights) of research she wants to share the stories of her ancestors with you through this exhibit. Rozalia’s hope for this exhibit is to give a voice to her ancestors that had none and to challenge the never-ending attempt to erase and silence people of color. Rozalia chooses to share her story through vibrant visual paintings of portraiture that explore intense feelings and understandings of her research.
Shelly Rosenquist - Eco Stars
July - September 2022
Opening Reception: July 22nd, 5-7 pm
Shelly Rosenquist says, “My subject matter ranges from what influences me in our world, but I tend to take much of my inspiration from nature and the organic. I believe that in our hectic human existence, we have strayed from what makes this world a beautiful place. I like to use my work as a tool to remind people to look around them, to breathe the air, to appreciate the detail and miracles of nature. I express myself by taking the neglected and twisting it into something unique that cannot be ignored.
I call this show 'Eco Stars,' because these paintings and their subject matter deserve their moment to shine.”
Jolie Collins
June-July 2022
Playful Palette II: Colorful Experiments in Abstract is a fun and bold series of works inspired by nature and created by Jolie Collins. Lively and vibrant acrylic paintings, along with subdued pieces created by applying sheer black layers beneath the colors, and mixed media works, made with various textured materials & image transfers, make up the display. Milwaukee area artist, Jolie paints nonrepresentational abstracts in energetic colors and paints mixed media pieces that combine imagery, words, sand, texture, decorative papers and/or objects. Drawing and painting what catches her fancy, a variety of subjects have inspired and influenced her art, including dancers, flowers, animals, fruit, non-representational abstracts, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, scripture, photography, comics, and printmaking. Recently, Jolie began exploring how to express a wider breadth of emotion and personal stories in her work. Believing that a happy heart makes the face cheerful, Jolie hopes that the works she creates bring joy to the soul by giving people a “musical hug” or more appropriately an artistic hug. No matter the subject matter, she wants her art to be uplifting and to impact people positively.
Brianna Seipel & Hannah Ribbens
March-May 2022
Brianna Seipel
As an avid hiker, Brianna Joy Seipel believes in the power of wild spaces to heal, inspire and transform. Inspired by backpacking trips with her husband, Joel, her vibrant oil paintings reveal the expansive beauty of national parks, forests, and wilderness areas. Her work invites us to consider landscapes as “places of refuge” and time outdoors as restorative care for the spirit, mind, and body.
Hannah Ribbens
Hannah P Ribbens’s work draws inspiration from her years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small Ecuadorian fishing village where she spent most of her time by the ocean and where she learned to see the world with a renewed sense of wonder. Her work seeks to share the awe and joy she experienced living by the ocean and now as a mother, the wonder she observes in her young children as they explore, experience, and learn to love the natural world around them. Her paintings are colorful and cross freely between the real and the imaginary.
