Winter Where Winter Works: Art of Solitude and Contemplation
The sun slowly dips toward the horizon and the days shorten. Indian Summer gives way to breezy, brisk days anticipating what will be another long cold winter for folks in the Upper Midwest. The hardy stock from the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin will prepare for the event by preserving food and slowing down in a manner not dissimilar from the regional fauna that sinks into hibernation. That Winter journey begins with a bracing defiance that knows that solitude, restraint, and preparation will be the best strategies for the hope of future fruits. The art world in the North manifests this spirit in a particularly wonderful and idiosyncratic manner. Winter Where Winter Works: Art of Solitude and Contemplation showcases art that reflects the spirit of that specific type of winter labor. Jason Vaughn’s ghostly deer stands function as both a vision of and a metaphor for, isolation and focus. Danielle Winger’s paintings capture the creaky quiet of winter across the “dark fields of the Republic” as Nick Carraway reflected in Gatsby. Her paintings freeze the haunting solitude of those fields in place. Leif Larson’s snow globe installation in the Vitrine will place the viewer into a similar space as they admire his playful and colorful painting. It was once remarked that the culture around ice fishing might be the greatest performance artform the Northern Midwest ever created, and the work in the Closet will take viewers into the depths of that bizarre ecosystem as it springs to life every year on Lake Winnebago. Saint Kate’s artist-in-residence Megan Woodard Johnson, for her part, considers the potential that the chilly interlude might bring to the act of creativity in a series of works about how private creativity pushes up against social interconnectedness.
hide
By Jason Vaughn
hide is a project that began as a commentary on Wisconsin’s hunting tradition, using deer stands as a metaphor for the changing values of the sport. When a cancer diagnosis interrupted Vaughn’s project, hide took on a much deeper, more personal meaning. Vaughn was inspired on his drives through Wisconsin by deer stands and began having conversations with hunters about their family traditions with hunting. Some described building the stands as something permanent that could be passed to the next generation, especially sons who would inherit the land. Vaughn was anticipating the birth of his son and thinking about his own legacy, so the idea resonated strongly with him. He spoke to hunters who insisted that the pastime wasn’t about violence, but about oneness with nature and family. Vaughn wanted the photographs in hide to capture the essence of those sentiments and to suggest the dignity traditionally associated with hunting. He imagined how the impermanence of the stands functioned as a metaphor for the declining hunting tradition in Wisconsin over the years.
When he was diagnosed with leukemia, the work on hide was put on hold. At 32 years old with a 3-month-old baby at home, Vaughn faced mortality that let him return to the project with a new perspective on permanence and impermanence. Ultimately, hide became his reflection on legacies and family; an homage to home, family, and a narrative about accepting change.
Jason Vaughn is a fine art documentary photographer based in Wisconsin. His first major series, hide, is a typological study using Wisconsin hunting stands as a reflection on legacies and family. It has been met with great acclaim and featured in the New York Times, Slate Magazine, and Artforum, among others. Photographs from hide were included in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Wisconsin Triennial and the State of the Art exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. For this show, curators visited over 1,000 studios searching for "the most compelling American art being created today.” After its opening at Crystal Bridges, State of the Art traveled to five additional museums including the Minneapolis Institute of Art. His second major series, Driftless, was a reflection on a year spent in a region of Wisconsin known colloquially as the Driftless Area. It was a collaboration with author and journalist Brad Zellar, who lent his verbal meanderings to the images, embedding a dueling but complementary narrative to the book. Together, the two contemplate the human experience and meditate on “the process by which people can drift through a space, sometimes becoming lodged, sometimes becoming permanent, and sometimes breaking free and moving to a new location.” It was released at the New York Art Book Fair and showcased at Paris Photo. Jason lives in Milwaukee with his wife and two children.
