West Bend Exhibition

The Wisconsin Artists Biennial began in 1900 as the Society of Wisconsin Artists with the mission to promote “the ennobling and educational influence of art.”

The exhibition aspires to showcase cutting-edge—even controversial—art emerging from Wisconsin. When members of the public requested a work be removed from the 1921 exhibition, they were rebuffed and told it was “essential to the life of the organization and integrity of their profession, to demand opportunity for free thought and action….” Outside experts traditionally jury the selection; during the 1930s, the celebrated Regionalist painters Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry were among the jurors.

In 2014 MOWA formed a partnership with Wisconsin Visual Artists (WVA) to co-organize and host the biennial, which draws over a thousand entries from more than five hundred artists. This year’s Biennial features 57 works by 54 artists hailing from 26 cities across the state. The selections represent a wide spectrum of media and perspectives from a cohort of emerging and established artists who represent the depth and diversity of contemporary American art viewed through the prism of Wisconsin. From nostalgia reconsidered and spiritual connections with nature to socio-political statements about the world in an American national election year, the Biennial artworks reflect the zeitgeist in a dynamic survey that comforts, confronts, and surprises.

The Biennial awards $10,000 in cash prizes. The top honor, the MOWA Prize, consists of $5,000 and a solo museum exhibition to run concurrently with the next iteration of the Biennial in 2026. Additional prizes are given to second through fourth place. Other honors include the Lee Weiss Award for a first time exhibitor, as well as merit awards.

2024 Jurors
A special thank you to our Wisconsin Artists Biennial 2024 jurors who reviewed a record number of submissions: 1,361 artworks by 521 artists.

Robert Cozzolino
Independent Curator based in Minneapolis

William Hernández Luege
Curatorial Fellow for Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

Sandra Jo Martinez
Painter, working primarily on paper and collaborating on hand-woven tapestries in her Door County and Santa Fe studios

Images
Carissa Sosnowski, Inevitable, 2023
Kira Straub, Fold Series (I-IV), 2023

Nadia Al-Khun (New Berlin)
Jeff Baenen (Kenosha)
Cassidy Baranek (Waterford)
Hannah O’Hare Bennett (Madison)
Aaron Boyd (Milwaukee)
Brian Breider (Glendale)
Kimberly Burnett (Milwaukee)
CathyJean Clark (Neillsville)
Tony Conrad (Appleton)
Angelica Contreras (Madison)
Phyllis Deicher-Ladwig (Plymouth)
Rachel Durfee (Madison)
Scott Espeseth (Madison)
Benjamin Fairly (Milwaukee)
Doug Fath (Madison)
Terri Field (Oconomowoc)
Jenie Gao (Madison)
Frankie Garr (Milwaukee)
Pavonis Giron (Milwaukee)
Jarod Hamley (Milwaukee)
Asher Imtiaz (Waukesha)
Robin Jebavy (Brookfield)
Jerry Jordan (Madison)
David Najib Kasir (Milwaukee)
Helen Klebesadel (Madison)
Michael Knapstein (Middleton)
Nykoli Koslow (Milwaukee)
Sarah Kreuter (Sobieski)
Andrew Linskens (Green Bay)
Cheryl Mahowald (Newton)
Abigail Marquardt (Green Bay)
Bethann Moran-Handzlik (Fort Atkinson)
Nina Moyer (Blanchardville)
Catherine Nelson (De Pere)
Janet Nelson (Cambridge)
William L. Nettelhorst (Fond du Lac)
Dennis Ninmer (New Holstein)
Kelly Jean Ohl (Sun Prairie)
Janet Roberts (Brookfield)
Katherine Steichen Rosing (Madison)
Hugo Saavedra (Pleasant Prairie)
Rafael Salas (Ripon)
Beth Schueffner (Neenah)
Andrea Skyberg (Wauwatosa)
Kara Slamka (Madison)
Sally Sorenson (Green Bay)
Carissa Sosnowski (Appleton)
Kira Straub (Milwaukee)
Aldis Strazdins (Wilton)
Hideki Suzuki (Madison)
Roberto Torres Mata (Madison)
Jennifer Urbanek (Milwaukee)
Sarah Vandersee (Oshkosh)
Terri Warpinski (De Pere)