Abel Contemporary Gallery

Abel Contemporary Gallery Established in 1987 the Abel Contemporary Gallery has one of the most impressive collections of fine

Holly Cohn is featured in our 4th Annual Painting invitational on display through July 20 abelcontemporary.com"My recent...
07/12/2025

Holly Cohn is featured in our 4th Annual Painting invitational on display through July 20 abelcontemporary.com

"My recent work includes “structured paintings” with multiple components that investigate the idea of continuation and connection, using the art media that works best for my exploration. I am inspired by poetry, often finding sparks of recognition as to how I experience life and the making of my art." - Cohn

Holly has an MFA in Metalsmithing and has taught evening classes in small metals at Madison College while being employed as a Senior Research Specialist in the Department of Ophthalmology during the day.

She has had a solo exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery located in the
Overture Center for the Arts, and two person exhibitions; at Lawrence
University and Edgewood College Gallery, The Stream. Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions regional and nationally, including the Madison Art Center, the Chazen Museum of Art, and the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.

ANNOUNCING THREE NEW SHOWS:SANDRA PETERSON: CAROUSELHOW'D THEY DO THAT?NO.5: KEEP GOING BY EMMETT RAMSTADJuly 25 - Sept...
07/11/2025

ANNOUNCING THREE NEW SHOWS:
SANDRA PETERSON: CAROUSEL
HOW'D THEY DO THAT?
NO.5: KEEP GOING BY EMMETT RAMSTAD

July 25 - September 7, 2025
Opening Reception Friday, July 25, 5-8 PM
Open to the public

Shows open online Saturday, July 26, 10 PM CT

Sandra Peterson : Carousel
Peterson showcases a vibrant collection of large-scale oil paintings inspired by carousel animals. These works are characterized by dramatic layers of rich color and Peterson’s signature expressive brushwork. Each animal is a still-life conveying the spirit of exuberance found in the circus. However, this joy is contrasted by the animal’s captivity and serving as a stand in for the harnessing of the human spirit. Despite this, each animal is given wings, symbolizing their ability to rise above their hardships to become a symbol of hope and resilience.
Artist Talk with Sandra Peterson - Sunday, August 3, 11 AM

How’d They Do That?
Artists include: Lisa Belsky, Barry Roal Carlsen, Carol Chase Bjerke, Craig Clifford, Tim Kowalczyk, Alex Mandli, Lydia Martin, John S. Miller, Ann Orlowski, Liza Riddle, Andy Rubin, and Timea Tihanyi.
How'd They Do That? attempts to answer this much-asked question regarding artworks created by processes that remain mysterious to the viewer even after close inspection. This show will offer an in-depth look into some of our artists' more complex and enigmatic approaches to making art.

In no. 5: Keep Going by Emmett Ramstad
Minneapolis based artist, Emmett Ramstad’s practice explores body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space through sculpture, installation, performance, and social engagement. His installation Keep Going explores usefulness and longevity in motion through colorful rag paintings and participatory sculpture. The exhibition features a scroll of abstract towel scraps that viewers can make into a moving image by turning a crank.
Artist Talk with Emmett Ramstad - Sunday, September 7, 11 AM

https://abelcontemporary.com/exhibitions---upcoming

Abel Contemporary is accepting proposals for gallery no.5!The mission of the no.5 space is to give opportunity for more ...
07/10/2025

Abel Contemporary is accepting proposals for gallery no.5!

The mission of the no.5 space is to give opportunity for more evocative exhibitions in all media, including installation, video art, etc. We are looking for proposals that will transform the space, and create a singular experience for viewers.
Abel Contemporary is a commercial art gallery, but the work in this particular space does not need to be marketable. If you would like a floor plan for the space sent to you make requests at [email protected] subject line no. 5 floor plan or call 608 845 6600.

More information at link below
https://abelcontemporary.com/no-5---submission-details

OPEN ONLINE NOW - LINDSAY OESTERRITTERABELCONTEMPORARY.COMJuly 9 - July 27, 2025Ceramic artist Lindsay Oesterritter has ...
07/09/2025

OPEN ONLINE NOW - LINDSAY OESTERRITTER
ABELCONTEMPORARY.COM
July 9 - July 27, 2025

Ceramic artist Lindsay Oesterritter has built her practice around community and tradition. She emphasises the significance of time and place within her work through her deliberate choices of clay and process. Each piece marks the moment of its creation, while simultaneously transcending time through the enduring quality of a well-crafted ceramic vessel.


Her work is primarily reduction wood-fired in her kiln located in Manassas, VA. Understated at first glance, these pieces, often unglazed, rely on the clay body and the firing process to impart dynamic variations on their surfaces, which reveal themselves upon closer inspection.

Online Feature : Lindsay Oesterritter - July 9 - July 27, 2025abelcontemporary.com
07/08/2025

Online Feature : Lindsay Oesterritter - July 9 - July 27, 2025
abelcontemporary.com


OPENING JULY 9 , 10AM CDT - LINDSAY OESTERRITTER - ONLINE FEATUREABELCONTEMPORARY.COMCeramic artist Lindsay Oesterritter...
07/07/2025

OPENING JULY 9 , 10AM CDT - LINDSAY OESTERRITTER - ONLINE FEATURE
ABELCONTEMPORARY.COM

Ceramic artist Lindsay Oesterritter has built her practice around community and tradition. She emphasises the significance of time and place within her work through her deliberate choices of clay and process. Each piece marks the moment of its creation, while simultaneously transcending time through the enduring quality of a well-crafted ceramic vessel.

Her work is primarily reduction wood-fired in her kiln located in Manassas, VA. Understated at first glance, these pieces, often unglazed, rely on the clay body and the firing process to impart dynamic variations on their surfaces, which reveal themselves upon closer inspection.


Wisconsin artist, Paul Burmeister, is another outstanding painter featured in our current 4th Annual Painting Invitation...
07/02/2025

Wisconsin artist, Paul Burmeister, is another outstanding painter featured in our current 4th Annual Painting Invitationl up though July 20.
Burmeister grew up in southeastern Minnesota, next to the Upper Mississippi River and its backwaters. He was encouraged while an undergraduate student to be a painter and received his M.F.A. from UW-Madison. Since then, his work has been shown regionally in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Doug DeVinny was an important later artistic mentor. Burmeister has also been employed as an educator, designer, art director, writer, and project manager, including the last two decades as a professor and administrator in higher ed. He lives and keeps a studio in Waukesha.

My paintings begin as contemplatively measured schematics—using pencil on canvas or paper—that use serendipitously taken reference photographs. As I build out a composition, I am most interested in its abstract qualities: balance, rhythm, proportion, and spatial relationships. Color is added gradually in layers, working from transparent to opaque applications. Specific color choices can be intuitive (felt or remembered) and/or perceptual (observed.) A painting is finished when it feels inevitable to me. I continue to be influenced by what I study, especially by the Postimpressionists, the American realists, and historic photographers.

Shown here:
Winona Behind Second Street, 12 x 15 x 1.50 in framed, 14 x 11 in, acrylic on canvas
Louisville Alley, 17 x 13 x 1.50 in framed, 11 x 14 in, acrylic on canvas
West Allis Alley, 12 x 15 x 1.50 in framed, 11 x 14 in, acrylic on canvas

Rachel Gregor is featured in our 4th Annual Painting invitational on display through July 20 abelcontemporary.comGregor ...
07/02/2025

Rachel Gregor is featured in our 4th Annual Painting invitational on display through July 20 abelcontemporary.com

Gregor lives and works in Kansas City, MO. She graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2012 and has studied abroad at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Zürich, Switzerland, and group exhibition participation nationwide. Her work has been featured in print publications such as New American Paintings (issue #161) and Create Magazine (issue #10, issue #25) as well as online at BOOOOOOOM (03/05/2018) the Jealous Curator (1/11/2021). She was born and raised in Minnesota.

Working in traditional paint media such as oil paint, gouache, and chalk pastel, artist Rachel Gregor (b. 1990) creates psychological portraits of young girls that tip-toe between realism and artificiality. Caught in a single moment between the mundane and the melodramatic, the figures are wide-eyed and wistful, frozen in a state somewhere between boredom and shock. In her latest body of work, the girls portrayed are encircled by their surroundings, usually backed up against a fence or isolated on a dock. The viewer stays trapped with the girls, as the expansive landscapes are often visually obstructed by a tree branch or the figure herself, preventing any visual wandering through the pictorial space. Botanical motifs are a common theme throughout Gregor’s visual lexicon, a nod to her upbringing of her family owning their own horticulture nursery, as well as being a broader symbol of fragility and resilience.

Shown here:
Stickleback, 37 x 35 in framed, 32 x 29.75 x 1.75 in, gouache, chalk pastel on toned paper
Pond Weeds (Bathers After Alma-Tadema), 35.50 x 46.50 in framed, 29.50 x 41 x 1.75 in, gouache and walnut ink on paper
Girl in Open Field, 18 x 18 x 1.50 in, oil on wood panel

Jordan Acker Anderson is one of the artists in our current 4th Annual Painting Invitational on view in the gallery and o...
07/01/2025

Jordan Acker Anderson is one of the artists in our current 4th Annual Painting Invitational on view in the gallery and online through July 20th.

Jordan Acker Anderson received her BFA in painting from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. She earned an MBA with an emphasis on art business in 2024. She is a studio art program director and professor for Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work has been published in numerous Studio Visit magazines, the Mid America Print Journal, and it is included in the following collections: University of Iowa: Art & Art History Department, University of Iowa: Hospitals & Clinics, and Field Museum Pandemic Collection. Group exhibition highlights include TMA Contemporary, Wisconsin Artists Biennial and Watercolor Wisconsin. She is an artist-in-residence for the 2024-2025ARTservancy program with Gallery 224 in Port Washington, Wisc., which pairs artists with land trust properties to emphasize regional conservation efforts.

"In my practice, I respond to our interconnectedness through the act of painting. My imagery develops through intuitive actions and interpretations of observations drawn from daily life. My studio practice is contemplative, providing form for my petitions, vigils, joy, and gratitude. The process is an act of discovery, and the result is an accumulation of mark, memory, and symbolism.
Creating in this way, painting becomes a meditative act, grounded in the practice of mindfulness. My compositions are a call and response between states of disruption and integration. I intentionally detach from previous studio sessions, working on each layer as a new beginning, to create a mindful aesthetic that reflects our impermanence."

shown here:
To Carry in Light, 36 x 36 in, acrylic on canvas
The Woven Edge Returns, 40 x 30 in, acrylic on canvas
To Leap and Lead, 36 x 48 in, acrylic on canvas

Stoughton Gallery Night is this weekend, Friday and Saturday, June 27 and 28 from 4-8pm each night. The Stoughton art ga...
06/25/2025

Stoughton Gallery Night is this weekend, Friday and Saturday, June 27 and 28 from 4-8pm each night. The Stoughton art galleries are happy to be partnering with ArtWorking and featuring some of their wonderful artists for this special event.

3 artists who will be featured at Abel Contemporary Gallery during Stoughton Gallery Night: Rose Heflin, Marri Krause, and Seth Albertson.
Rose's handmade paper series with haiku/tonka titles will be on display for the first time as a unit, and it will really pull you in.
Marri is one of ArtWorking's newest artists, and she has already developed an enthralling and fabulous aesthetic. If you have not seen her work yet- you will want to know who she is.
Seth's work is always striking in subject and exacting in ex*****on, and this time is no different. New work making its debut in the world!

pictured: Seth Albertson, Marri Krause, and Rose Heflin.

Other participating galleries are Green Road Pottery, Overt Space Gallery + Gift, Zovar Fine Art, Woodland Studios, and Grand Inspired.

for more information
https://abelcontemporary.com/gallery-night-stoughton

ARTWORKING .space

Address

Stoughton, WI

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm

Telephone

+16088456600

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Abel Contemporary Gallery posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category

A little history

For the last 32 years the Abel Contemporary Gallery has been building a reputation as one of the largest and most impressive collections of fine art and fine craft in the region, featuring notable works in many media, and hosting new exhibits every six to seven weeks by artists from across the nation. Over the years, the gallery has grown in quality and reputation. The gallery recently moved from their original location in Paoli to their new home in Stoughton, WI, just minutes from Madison. The 8,000 square foot gallery is housed in a beautifully renovated former to***co warehouse built in 1892.

Abel Contemporary Gallery opened in 1987 as the Wisconsin Artisan Gallery under the direction of its original owner, who converted a former creamery into a showplace for the work of 30 local artists. A few years later the gallery shortened its name to the Artisan Gallery, enabling the gallery to show talent from a broader region.

In 1998, Theresa Abel became the Art Director and helped continue the growth of the gallery. In 2004, she and artist Tim O'Neill took over ownership, broadening the focus of the gallery, exhibiting artists with national reputations along with work of well-known local artists. Abel, a painter, and O’Neill, a woodworker and metalsmith focused on exhibiting fine art and fine craft side by side.