Peninsula School of Art Explores Artist Collaborations

Shan Bryan-Hanson worked with Scott Leipski to create the shadow box–like wall sculpture “Let Me Talk to You.” Photo courtesy of Peninsula School of Art.

Peninsula School of Art will open its newest exhibition, Dynamic Duos: Art of Collaboration on April 8 with work by nine artist pairs. A free public reception will kick off the exhibit, 4:30-6 pm, at the school, 3900 Cty F in Fish Creek. The exhibit will run through Saturday, May 28. 

The school invited artists, who then chose their own collaborating artists.

Some kept their partner selection pretty close to home. Baileys Harbor-based photographer Steven Stanger, for example, chose his wife, Arlene, who’s also a photographer. Julia Redwine, an abstract oil and cold wax painter in Sturgeon Bay chose Dale J. Vanden Houten, who lists his home as St. Paul, but who also shares a studio gallery – Between the Bridges on 3rd Avenue in Sturgeon Bay – with her.

Other artists ventured farther afield. Shan Bryan-Hanson of Sturgeon Bay, who teaches art at St. Norbert College and is the curator of the school’s galleries, invited Scott Leipski of Gladstone, Michigan, as her collaborator. Bryan-Hanson does delicately colored paintings of natural subjects such as birds, plants and bees; he does sculpture in ceramics and more recently fiberglass, a medium that allows him to go bigger with his work. 

“Scott and I have both been represented by Cappaert Contemporary and met at one of the gallery receptions a number of years ago,” Bryan-Hanson said. 

For the Peninsula School of Art exhibition, the pair embarked on the collaboration process via email, exchanging ideas back and forth. He then drove down to St. Norbert, and they discussed possibilities for several hours and followed up with Zoom calls and emails.  

Their collaboration took the form of a wall-mounted pine box measuring 24 inches by 36 inches by 3.5 inches covered in Yupo paper, “which looks like vellum,” Bryan-Hanson said, “but the difference is that Yupo accepts water-based paint – in this case, gouache and watercolor.”

Holes cut into the box reveal tiny birds created from pressed molds.

Clay is pressed into the mold, the excess around the joints becoming part of the sculpture.
From farther away, it’s hard to figure out what the object is, adding to the fun of leaving something to be discovered. 

“To cut holes in a painting and put something behind and obscure it gives you more discovery, more interest,” she said.

The opportunity to collaborate was a change of pace for many of the artists, Bryan-Hanson included. Her artist’s statement describes her process as a solo venture, which made the task of collaborating with another artist both fun and, admittedly, a bit daunting. 

“Our palettes are quite different,” she said, “but there is some overlap in our imagery. We are both drawn to birds, patterns and repetition. Also, as a 2D artist, I thought it would be fun to work with a sculptor.” 

Bryan-Hanson will have a solo painting of birds, and Leipski will exhibit a 24-inch-tall ceramic piece titled “Barnum’s Trophy.”

Anne Kelly, a printmaker in Fish Creek and Chicago, chose to work with Mary Beth McGinnis of Chicago, who does artistic upholstery. Collaborating over a glass of wine, the two quickly selected the chair frame, color schemes and complementary fabrics. Kelly contributed a group of prints, and they selected five or six that would work.

“We agreed that I would focus on creating various tones in the prints pulled from each plate so that we would have ample options for our foreground and background,” Kelly said. 

McGinnis had images of Kelly’s paper prints, the monotypes, printed onto velvet and linen fabric.

“She then cut out shapes from that fabric and other mohair to ‘collage’ upholster the chair,” Kelly said, adding that Etel Adnan abstract landscapes – and a bit of wine – were the initial inspiration.

“After the chair was completely upholstered with finishing piping, we then had fun adding the flower and circular pin embellishments using mohair or the printed velvet and linen,” she said.

Meg Lionel Murphy of Sturgeon Bay and her chosen collaborator, Robin Millard of Plymouth, Minnesota, agreed on a mermaid theme for their shared piece. Millard, a first-grader and Murphy’s niece, shared the following from the experience. 

“I like to make art that is bright and blended. My favorite colors are red, pink, purple, black,” she wrote. “I like to make art with my Aunt Meggy.”

Murphy, who has shown in solo and group shows at The Untitled Space in New York and galleries in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, added, “There is a fragility and courage that comes from pairing my work with Robin’s. I am endlessly inspired by her vision for color and pattern, but most of all, by her sensitivity and imagination.”

For this particular work, Murphy painted while sitting next to Robin. The pair shared a palette and helped each other make decisions. 

“It was a lovely process and made my work feel more playful than usual,” Murphy said. 

In her own artist’s statement, Murphy said her paintings “are directly influenced by my personal experiences as I cope with debilitating PTSD from severe domestic violence. I paint detailed, vivid works on paper and panels depicting heartbroken bodies that magically grow larger, stronger and scarier than the world around them.”

Her work, she went on to explain, depicts a reverence for fragility and humanity while examining questions about gender, sexuality, class, sacrifice, pain, whiteness, sickness, loneliness “and – most of all – violence and its haunting memories.”

Additional artist pairs include Ginnie Cappaert and Jill Birschbach (Evanston, Illinois); Renee Schwaller and Jeanne Kuhns; Christy Kelly-Bentgen and Karen Gallup (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and Julia Redwine and Dale J. Vanden.