Current Exhibits

Shin-hee Chin: Rootedness

(December 6, 2024–March 2, 2025)

Shin-hee Chin: Rootedness presents the work of decorated fiber and mixed-media artist Chin. Her art is a rich tapestry woven from diverse influences, including feminist traditions, Christian spirituality, and Eastern philosophy. This unique blend forms a coherent narrative addressing the complex issues of the female body, procreation and motherhood, mother tongue, cultural identity, cultural hybridity, and a sense of belonging. 

Chin’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Washington, DC, Tokyo, Geneva, Taiwan, and South Korea. Chin’s work has graced the covers of the Studio Art Quilt Associates Journal (Spring 2017) and the Surface Design Association Journal (Summer 2014). As an esteemed educator for 17 years, she is currently a Professor in the Visual Art Department at Tabor College, where she has made significant contributions through her teaching and mentorship. Chin has taught drawing, painting, color theory, and mixed media. She was elected as Distinguished Faculty in 2008.

Shin-hee Chin, The Song of Life; courtesy of the artist.

Artist Statement

My body of work, Rootedness, at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts visualizes the symbiotic relationship between nature and humanity, embracing the mysterious, restorative force of nature. Through the metaphor of roots, I explore the complex interconnectivity and interdependence that define this relationship, emphasizing our essential connection with nature.

Having spent half of my life in South Korea and more than the other half in the United States, cultural context has shaped almost all my works. My move to the Midwest has changed my relationship to the subtle landscape of the Great Plains. “Spirit Resonance” sets out to explore the cultural and artistic encounter through a new frame of reference and aesthetic investigation.

The tradition of landscape in Western art has been increasingly concerned with reproducing nature; whereas Eastern landscape art is more interested in reproducing a stylized vision of nature. Despite the differences between these approaches, there are distinct parallels and consonances. The intention of creating landscape is to suggest the essence, the eternal qualities of the landscape beyond reality, something sublime. It is imbuing the landscape with a “spirit resonance” or vitality. The process of the work is a record of energy being transferred from the artist into the work. Rootedness explores cultural and artistic encounters through a new frame of reference and aesthetic investigation.

I blend music and spirituality, weaving diverse musical and literary influences into my visual compositions with a rich color palette. My goal is to imbue both abstract and representational images with the interconnectedness of art, music, poetry, and the spiritual realm.

The primary medium and method for these works—fiber, thread, and stitching—provide a unique agent of interpretation with their tactile richness, vibrant color, multilayered depth, and complex cultural roles. By incorporating fiber, I transform the conventionally feminine activity of stitching into a medium for art-making.

While exploring the intricate patterns of existence, I discover the microscopic and macroscopic structures that sustain life. I showcase the harmonious interactions of diverse elements, highlighting nature's intrinsic balance and resilience. Though the intertwined appearance may seem chaotic, it creates a unique beauty through its close connections, seeking to find links between will and chance, the visible and invisible, change and creation, microcosm and macrocosm.

This project explores cultural hybridization by incorporating the media and techniques of Asian sensibilty and American cultures/tradition into new forms of art-making. The slow, repetitive nature of stitching enables mindfulness of the present moment. 

Through this, I symbolically partake in creating a new synthesis of East and West, craft and fine art, the artist and nature, my native Korea and the American Midwest. This practice bridges diverse elements and weaves them into a cohesive whole.

Paula Nadelstern: Kaleidoscopes and Quilts

(December 6, 2024–March 2, 2025)

Paula Nadelstern is acclaimed internationally for her innovative and complex quilt designs inspired by the bilateral symmetry of kaleidoscopic images. Her kaleidoscopic designs burst with visual dynamism as she artfully arranges an abundance of light, color, form, and motion into a rich and cohesive picture. For nearly forty years, Nadelstern has dedicated herself to seamlessly blending the concept of a kaleidoscope with the techniques and materials of quiltmaking. Freeing herself from a conventional sense of fabric orderliness, she seeks a random quality to imitate the succession of chance interlinkings and endless possibilities synonymous with kaleidoscopes. 

Employing a distinctive approach that obscures, rather than defines, the seams, her piecework creates seemingly unlimited patterns and permutations. With the ability to find patterns in anything, everywhere she goes, her quilt designs are often inspired by her travels and the places that are special to her. The ornate ceiling of Prague's Spanish Synagogue and the architectural Brooklyn Bridge (in a private collection) are two places that have become the subjects of her quilts. Nadelstern says that "symmetry and serendipity laced with abundant color and pattern" are at the heart of her quilting. 

This exhibition celebrates the life's work of Paula Nadelstern, a true pioneer in the world of quilt design. Nadelstern, who still lives on the same block where she grew up in the Bronx, has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and The Bronx Council on the Arts. She was included in Twentieth Century's 100 Best American Quilts, and her designs were featured in the American Folk Art Museum's first one-person exhibition highlighting the work of a contemporary quilt artist (2009). Nadelstern is the author of six books and has designed over 31 collections for Benartex, Inc. 

Artist Statement

For almost forty years, the state-of-the-art kaleidoscope has not only been my design inspiration, it's also been my classroom. Analyzing not only what a scope is but also what it isn't has steered me in lots of valuable directions. I've learned to manipulate physical properties like rhythm and line to inject a feeling of motion into an otherwise static image. But it is the unique qualities synonymous with the kaleidoscope personality that I'm always trying to get to know better. Surprise. Magic. Change. Chance. In order to conjure an instant of luminous and fleeting spontaneity, I've got to trust in symmetry, rely on detail, commit both random and staged acts of color, and understand that the whole will always be greater than the sum of its parts.

Milwaukee Art Quilters (MArQ) Kid Art

(September 25, 2024–January 12, 2025)

Atrium and Micro-Gallery Exhibition

The Milwaukee Art Quilters (MArQ) make contemporary art quilts, pursue exhibit and competition opportunities, and support each other’s artistic growth. Founded in 1992, MArQ has over 40 members from varied backgrounds who gather monthly to advance their skills as quilt artists.

MArQ has won national group exhibit awards and has been included in such national venues as the La Conner National Quilt Museum in Seattle, WA, the AQS Quilt Expo in Nashville, TN, AQS Quilt Week in Grand Rapids, MI and The Quilters’ Heritage Celebration in Lancaster, PA.  State exhibits include the Wisconsin Arts Board and Quilt Expo in Madison, Alverno College, and Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee. The MArQ 2020 Challenge was Kid Art. We had planned to submit the finished quilts to the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge in 2020. However, when Covid-19 hit, the AQS meeting was canceled.

This exhibition is the first time the quilts have been shown. The parameters were they should be square—approximately 36” (plus or minus 2”)—and any technique or any topic that conforms to the theme of children’s art.

Exhibit Links

• Upcoming Exhibits

• Past Exhibits