Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series

September 9, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Geornica Daniels

Geornica Daniels is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture and site-specific installation who has exhibited in group and solo shows, regionally and nationally, including at the ARC Gallery (Chicago), John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan), Portrait Society Gallery (Milwaukee), Rahr-West Art Museum (Manitowoc). Daniels received her MFA from UWM.

September 16, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Tanya Crane

Tanya Crane is a metalsmithing and jewelry artist whose work is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Stewart Foundation for Modern Design, Enamel Arts Foundation, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN. Crane was named a 2024 United States Artist Fellow in Craft and is also the recipient of The Doris Prouty Foundation Artist Grant which is offered to BIPOC/AAPI women artists in Massachusetts and North Carolina. Crane is an Assistant Professor of 3D Foundations, Jewelry and Sculpture at Long Beach City College.

September 23, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Adam Schiverdecker

Adam Shiverdecker is a ceramics sculptor and educator living in Oakland, California. He is currently Professor of Spatial Art at San José State University where he specializes in experimental processes and ceramic sculpture. His work has been shown in venues such as The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse), Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco) and Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami).

October 7, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Brennen Steins

Brennen Steines constructs abstract topographies that embody the alchemical nature of painting’s materiality. Through utilizing various excavational processes and emulsive solutions, Steines produces visceral terrains that speak to geologic time and the haunting awe of material transformation. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at DIMIN (NYC), Chilli Art Projects (London), Museum of Wisconsin Art. Jeffrey Deitch (NYC), The Alice Wilds (Milwaukee), and Usable Space (Milwaukee). He is currently based in New Haven, CT.

October 14, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Laura Farahzad Mayer

Laura Farahzad Mayer is a Milwaukee-based artist and educator. Her experience growing up as the daughter of an Iranian immigrant in a small town informs her work, which navigates through the grief of losing her father while seeking to connect two generations - her father and her children - who were never living at the same time. Her work explores themes of memory, grief, culture, and generational storytelling. Mayer is a professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and is a recipient of the 2026 Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists.

October 21, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Mikey Yates

Mikey Yates was born in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in shows in New York, Los Angeles, Marfa, Boston, Sydney, London, Marrakech, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Yates has been awarded two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants and has participated in art residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency, and the Adventure Painting Residency.

October 28, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Brett Lysne

Brett Lysne is an artist working in printmaking, drawing, artist books, and mixed media. His work is inspired by mapmaking, language, knowledge, and queer record-keeping. Currently Brett is living in Minneapolis, MN and is a co-op member at Highpoint Center for Printmaking.

November 4, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Yinan Wang

Yinan Wang 王一男 is a filmmaker born and raised in Beijing. His recent work, 甜腻腻 Thick & Sweet, reconstructs both personal and collective memories of a local Chinese restaurant through cutouts, reenactments, found footage, and fragments of earlier films, quietly probing how images form—and deform—cultural identity. Wang received his BFA from UWM and is a recipient of the 2026 Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists.

November 11, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Micah Alhadeff

Micah Alhadeff is a digital artist, curator, and educator whose work explores glitch aesthetics, virtual embodiment, and speculative transformation. Alhadeff’s work has been exhibited at Sotheby's in New York City, The Royal Institute in London, NFT.NYC, NFT Show Europe in Valencia, Spain, Tech Contemporary in Copenhagen, and across 1000 billboards in Belgium through Art Crush Gallery. Alhadeff is as Assistant Professor of Kinetic Imaging at Western Michigan University where he teaches experimental approaches to game engines, worldbuilding, and emerging technologies in digital art.

November 18, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Rachel David

Rachel David is a North Carolina-based blacksmith, sculptor, designer, and maker. Her metalwork practice is holistic; encompassing art, furniture, architectural elements, activism, collaborations, and gardening. Using the physical and technically demanding processes of forging, forming, and machining steel, Rachel addresses broader issues of “body” and “landscape” through the lens of social and environmental justice. David's work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, the City of New Orleans, the City of Asheville, the Simone Benetton Foundation, and numerous private collections.

December 2, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Tyler Evans

Tyler Evans is a visual communicator originally from Georgia, now living and working in Washington DC, using design and digital media to make politics more accessible to people in their daily lives. Tyler has previously worked as Creative Director for Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and currently works as Creative Director for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress.

December 9, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Mich Dillon

Mich Dillon is a Milwaukee-based sculptor who received his MFA from UWM. He works with wood, rope and found objects and his work tells stories about patterns of connection, separation, and familial cycles. Dillon work is part of the permanent collection at the sculpture garden at Adam’s Garden Park in Milwaukee.

January 27, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Nonka Enkhee

Nomka Enkhee merges drawing, poetry, sculpture and performance. Over the past year, she has researched Tuuli, a form of oral Mongolian epic poetry that combines eulogies, spells, idiomatic phrases, fairy tales, myths, and folk songs. She weaves in traditional elements of oral storytelling, reinterpreting narration through experimental writing and performance. Enkhee is the co-director of e.s.r. (experimental sculpture room), an exhibition space and a publishing practice based in Milwaukee. Enkhee is a recipient of the 2026 Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists.

February 3, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: William Estrada

William Estrada grew up in California, Mexico, and Chicago. His approach to both art and teaching is centered on collaborative discourse. He draws on academic literature, educational settings, and personal interactions to report, record, reveal, and amplify lived experiences, aiming to foster radical imagination. He is well known for taking his mobile screen-printing cart directly out to the community in Chicago where he disseminates prints and risograph to the people. Estrada is an Asst. Professor in the Dept of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

February 10, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Nicole Marroquin

Nicole Marroquin is a transdisciplinary artist and educator who explores Black and Latinx Midwest histories of youth resistance movements, belonging and spatial justice. In 2019 she began a social media project called Chicago Raza Research Consortium. In 2020 Marroquin was the recipient of the USA Fellowship. She is Professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

February 17, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Gerhardt Knodel

Gerhardt Knodel is an American contemporary textile artist, academic administrator, and educator. He was the head of the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1970 to 1997 and served as the director from 1997 to 2007. His work has gained international recognition and has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Japan-American Friendship Fellowship, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the James Renwick Alliance, and the State of Michigan. Knodel was awarded the Gold Medal by the American Craft Council.

February 24, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Jamie Ho

Jamie Ho is an interdisciplinary artist who is currently based in Tallahassee, Florida. Her art practice engages with GIFs, photography, and installation to investigate the long-term impact of assimilation and cultural bereavement through references of ancestral Chinese traditions and artifacts. Her work troubles the history of public spectacle and display of Asian American women, using performance and lighting studio to challenge societal expectations of gender roles and norms. She has been included in the 2023 Silver List, was a Critical Mass Finalist and was awarded the 40th Center Annual Beth Block Honorarium by Houston Center for Photography.

March 3, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Paolo Pedercini

Paolo Pedercini is an Italian game designer known for making Flash videogames based on socio-political points of view, on topics such as labour market flexibility and queer theory, in explicit opposition with the mainstream video game industry. He is known under the pseudonym Molleindustria, the name of his website. He created games such as Queer Power, Faith Fighter and the McDonald's Video Game. The games are often offered as freeware under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license.

March 10, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Soumya Netrabile

Soumya Netrabile is a Chicago-based painter who has exhibited at Anat Ebgi (Los Angeles), Rachel Uffner (NYC), Trinta Gallery (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Indigo + Madder (London), and Karma (NYC). Her forthcoming solo exhibition will take place at Anat Ebgi in New York.

March 31, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Cappy Counard

Cappy Counard creates jewelry and sculptural objects that explores the notions of work, care, storytelling and repair in the objects she makes. Counard is a Professor of Jewelry and Metals at Edinboro University and has taught workshops in universities across the country as well as at Penland School of Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Peter’s Valley School of Craft and Touchstone Center for Crafts.

April 7, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Bridget Conn

Bridget Conn is an Indiana-based photographic artist who investigates photography as both a chemical and physical medium through camera-less and experimental processes. Addressing themes of societal struggle, awe, miscommunication, digital versus tactile experience, and the value of embracing mistakes, she expands the boundaries of the medium through prints, installations, and sculptural works.

April 14, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Niki Johnson

Niki Johnson is a Milwaukee-based artist, curator and Executive Director of Forward Art Initiative. For the past decade, Johnson has run her studio full-time, exhibiting her art and curating local and national exhibitions. Her artwork is in the permanent collections of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Madison Central Public Library, UW-Health’s American Center Hospital and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

April 21, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Della Wells and Evelyn Terry

Della Wells is a nationally recognized collage artist whose work is in the collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chazen Museum of Art, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, the Intuit Art Museum, and many private collections. Evelyn Terry’s book art, oil portraits, found-object assemblages, and marked-up sewn recycled drawings can be found in over 500 collections worldwide. She has exhibited in Spain, Germany, Japan, and Russia, and has created public art projects for her neighborhood in Milwaukee and for the Mitchell International Airport.

April 28, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Megan Olson

Megan Olson is an abstract painter whose practice has evolved over the past twenty years between the fine art world and the culture of graffiti. Drawing from modernist traditions and the improvisational energy of street-based mark making, she has developed a visual language rooted in abstraction and automatic gesture. Olson is currently the Chair of the Archives Committee for the American Abstract Artists.

May 5, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: Nathaniel Stern

Nathaniel Stern is an interdisciplinary artist, engineer, and researcher whose work explores how humans co-evolve with technology - especially artificial intelligence. His recent work focuses on how art can support thinking, creating, and making meaning with and about AI. Stern is a Professor of Art & Design (Creative Technologies) at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering. He is also Director of Academic Engagement and Creative Impact at UWM’s Lubar Entrepreneurship Center (LEC).

May 12, 2027, 7:00 pm

Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series: MFA Candidates Alex Witteman & Liya Du

Liya Du is a Chinese artist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is an MFA candidate in Painting and Drawing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Alex Witteman is a multimedia artist exploring the intersections of photography, sculpture, and performance art.