Angela Piehl

Angela Piehl is a Milwaukee-based visual artist and Professor and Area Head of Painting & Drawing in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts.

Piehl's interdisciplinary practice spans collage, painting, and drawing, examining how media imagery shapes ideas of gender, consumerism, luxury, and material value. Piehl's work explores the histories and cultural meanings embedded in everyday objects and found imagery, re-contextualizing them to challenge systems of representation and the visual codes that define identity and desire. Drawing on collage as both a process and conceptual framework, she creates hybrid compositions that blur distinctions between the synthetic and organic, natural and constructed, while engaging themes of queer ecology, queer abstraction, and speculative fabulation.

Piehl's research considers collage as a generative space of continual transformation, where fragments of visual culture are reassembled to question dominant narratives and imagine alternative relationships between bodies, materials, and environments. Through this approach, Piehl investigates legacies of consumer culture while affirming hybridity, ecological inter-connectedness, and the potentials of "queering" established categories.

Piehl's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and has been featured in Art New England, The Denver Post, Pelican Bomb, Glasstire, and the textbook Gateways to Drawing (Thames & Hudson, 2018). Her work is held in the collections of Kala Art Institute, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, New Mexico State University Art Gallery, Harper College, and the John Michael Kohler Art Center.

An active lecturer and visiting artist, Piehl has presented her work and research at universities, museums, conferences, and community arts organizations throughout the United States. She has participated in numerous artist residencies, including ARTServancy, the Kohler Arts/Industry Residency, Jentel, Kala Art Institute, Vermont Studio Center, and Chashama in New York CIty.

Piehl received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Her work is represented by Walker Fine Art in Denver, Colorado.

Links

• Curriculum Vitae, CV (PDF)
• angelapiehl.com
• walkerfineart.com/angela-piehl

Recent & Selected Works

Artistic Exhibitions & Artwork

• Piehl, Angela. ArtServancy Solo Exhibition, ArtServancy Residency, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI, 2026
• Piehl, Angela; Woo, Joo; Klein, Sandra. Topographies of Being, 3-person exhibition, Walker Fine Art, Denver, CO, 2025
• Piehl, Angela. Portals, Planets and Petri Dishes, Solo Exhibition, Center for Visual Art, Wausau, WI, 2025
• Piehl, Angela. Collaged Ecologies, Solo Exhibition, Harper College Art Gallery, Palatine IL, 2023
• Piehl, Angela; Todd Mrozinski. Recompose: Todd Mrozinski & Angela Piehl, 2-person exhibition, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, 2022

Creative Works Published/Cited by Others

• Stephen Gardner, Gateways to Drawing: A Complete Guide, chapter illustration inlcusion, Thames and Hudson Publishing, 2018.
• Beauchamp, Toby, Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices, Front cover illustration, Duke Press, 2018.

Grants/Funded Research

• Interdisciplinary Research Grant, College of Arts & Architecture, U. Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2026; $20,000 funded in support of CAA inter-disciplinary research project: Queer Methodologies, Between Gesture and Construction Co-authored with Mair Culbreth, Adrienne Economos-Miller, Lois Bielfeld
• Nohl Suitcase Award, Nohl Foundation Suitcase Export Fund, Milwaukee, WI, 2025
• Faculty Sabbatical, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Fall 2025
• Student undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, 2024; $2,500 funded in support of research project: “Creative Histories: Examining Multimedia Pop Artist Red Grooms’ 1972 Portrait of UWM Students & Instructors”; Co-authored with Joseph Mougel
• Research Assistance Fund Grants (RAF), University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, 2021, 2023; $5,500 funded in support of research projects; conducting and disseminating research and creative work
• OVAC Artist Fellowship Awards, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, OK, 2019, 2012; $10,000 funded in support of new works and exhibitions
• OVAC Creative Project Grants, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, OK, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2010, 2008; $7500 funded in support of new works and exhibitions

Notable

• ACRE Residency Juror, Summer Artist Residency Program, ACRE Projects, Chicago IL, 2025
• Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Artist Choice Awards Nominator, Milwaukee WI, 2023
• Trash as Material, Panel Discussion, Solo Artist Residency, Kolaj Institute, New Orleans, LA, 2025
• Visiting Artist Critique Series, University of New Orleans, MFA Candidates, New Orleans, LA, 2025
• Visiting Artist Lecture & Graduate Critique Series Clemson University Art Department, Clemson, SC, 2025
• Kolaj Institute Solo Residency, New Orleans, LA (November 3-16) 2025; artist residency, with artist fellowship funding
• ARTServancy Residency, Milwaukee, WI 2025-2026 1-year artist residency with honorarium, in partnership with Wisconsin Land Conservancy efforts
• Kohler Arts & Industry Residency, Sheboygan, WI (May-July) 2019 3-month artist residency with honorarium, with inclusion in John Michael Kohler Permanent Collection