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Steve Wetzel Headshot

Steve Wetzel

  • Associate Dean, College of the Arts & Architecture
  • Head of School, Peck School of the Arts
  • Associate Professor, Film, Video, Animation and New Genres

Education

  • MFA, Film and Video, UW-Milwaukee
  • MFA, Painting, University of Chicago
  • BFA, Painting, UW-Eau Claire

Biography

Steve Wetzel is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His creative research interests include the intersection of experimental film and video, observational documentary, and the social construction of reality. Wetzel’s recent work, a short hybrid of personal essay and structuralist video, screened internationally at festivals including the Europeanorama Film Days International Short Film Festival in Riga, Latvia, and the Indian Independent Film Festival in West Bengal. With courses in documentary, filmic composition and form, and graduate research, Wetzel seeks to integrate his creative work and pedagogy and is a firm believer in the classroom as a radical, creative space where both teacher and student are vulnerable to transformation.

Curriculum Vitae, CV (PDF)

Recent & Selected Works

Terraced open‑pit mine in a mountain landscape under a clear sky.
Still from Aquarius the Waterman, video, 10 minutes, 2017
Silhouetted profile of a person in dim light with a timestamp along the bottom.
Still from Kid Beat Box: Twenty-two Tapes, Edit Nine, video, 9 minutes, 2011
Person standing at a pedestal with papers and a bottle in a gallery space.
Performance during solo exhibition at the Green Gallery, 2013
Abstract blue painting with a ghostly white figure holding a staff near geometric shapes.
Figure with Staff, painting, 4′ X 3′, 2010
Book cover with grid of abstract panels and the title ‘PAUSE’ by Stephen Wetzel.
Book of essays, 2014

Music Club, video, 30 minutes, 2015

Artistic Exhibitions & Artwork

  • Wetzel, Steve. Europeanorama Film Days, International Short Film Festival. 2025, Riga, Latvia.
  • Wetzel, Steve. Indian Independent Film Festival. 2025, West Bengal, India.
  • Wetzel, Steve. 2019. Sound for Silents. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Artistic Works & Performances

  • My Brother. Directed by Steve Wetzel, 2023.
  • Music Club. Directed by Steve Wetzel, 2015.
  • Aquarius the Waterman. Directed by Steve Wetzel, 2017.