SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Jan. 20, 2018

SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT

Mount Horeb artist featured in exhibit paired with the 2018 Wisconsin Arts Biennial at the Museum of Wisconsin Art

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

ndettmann@conleynet.com

262-306-5043

When S.V. Medaris convinced a group of people that looking at artwork of chickens was worthwhile, that’s when her career took off.

Nearly 15 years later, Medaris, a Mount Horeb native, will open “Strange Breeds: Evolution and Selective Breeding” and the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.

The exhibition’s opening is paired with the 2018 Wisconsin Artists Biennial, also hosted by MOWA. Both open Feb. 3. Medaris’ exhibition goes through April 1, while the biennial exhibition is until April 8.

“I think it’s one of the most prestigious Wisconsin ones,” Medaris said of the Biennial at MOWA. “You see people from all over the state.”

Medaris, whose first name is Sue, was the 2016 “Best of Show” winner, doing so with a 40- by 60-inch woodcut block on paper called “Hog Butcher for the World.” It featured a pig and the Union Stock Yards in Chicago.

The honor came 12 years after her first award, “Best in Show” at the 18th annual Artful Women Art Show in Madison. But she thought the Biennial honor may be the biggest in her career.

“It was huge because typically people expect, in terms of an audience, you have to have bright colors,” Medaris said. “But they were embracing this old traditional printmaking. It blew my mind. I didn’t expect it at all.”

This year’s Biennial features 53 works by 46 artists. Nearly 390 artists submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration.

The Biennial opens with a party from 2-5 p.m. Feb. 3 at MOWA with the awards ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Up for grabs is about $10,000 in cash prizes. One artist will receive a solo exhibition at MOWA.

This year’s jurors are Katherine Chang Liu, a painter, teacher and curator from California, and Scott Zieher, an artist, poet and gallery owner from New York City.

Getting into the Biennial in 2016 was an honor by itself for Medaris, which was her first appearance since 2011.

Winning it was beyond her wildest dreams.

“It affirmed that you’re moving in the right direction,” said Medaris, who has been featured in the biennial six times since her first appearance in 2005. “It was a huge honor.”

To say she was surprised would be an understatement for another reason, she said.

“Some of the pieces were really outstanding,” Medaris said. “I didn’t believe it at first. I was getting over sickness, so I was kind of half asleep.”

It was a satisfying culmination from her first exhibition which was called “A One Chick Show: Of Cocks and Hens” at the Central Madison Public Library.

“It was a lot of work because nobody takes you seriously when you want to do a show about chickens,” Medaris said.

She opened her studio, S.V. Medaris Fine Art/Market Weight Press in Mount Horeb, in 1994. Her interest in art, though, started much earlier.

“I’ve been into art most of my life,” she said.

When she was in grade school, she routinely heard positive feedback about her dabbling with art. She also remembered thinking at a young age that she wanted to do something different and be original. So when she heard and saw the feedback, she knew she found something.

“I always wanted to do it,” Medaris said. “If you’re told you’re good at something, it’s exciting.”

One of her first pieces was of monsters.

“It made a lot of people laugh,” she said. “I really enjoyed that; getting a reaction out of people, that’s the ultimate compliment.”

Medaris, who is also a graphic designer for the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, loved the feedback from people that told her the work looked like a real picture.

And she loved the challenge of “how do you make it more than that?” And that’s what she showed with her first solo exhibition showcasing chickens. She called the exhibition fun and humorous, but also educational.

“That was pretty important as far as my professional career,” Medaris said.

In the years that followed, her work began to spread throughout Wisconsin, getting featured in exhibitions — solo or with several artists — almost every year. She’s had 14 solo exhibitions, six two-three person exhibitions and 36 select group exhibitions, as far away as Nicaragua, Australia and England. She’s also been published in books and magazines

and won six awards.

“Anytime you get a big exhibition, it instantly gives you name recognition,” Medaris said.

“When (MOWA) offered it to me, I didn’t quite believe it,” she said about getting a solo exhibition. “It’s a huge deal for me. It’s the most prestigious because it’s in a museum.”