Angela (Angie) Trudell Vasquez, a second and third generation Mexican-American originally from Iowa, served as the city of Madison Poet Laureate from 2020 to early 2024. The first Latina to hold the position she received her MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2017. In Light, Always Light, her third collection of poetry came out in 2019, and her fourth, My People Redux, was published in 2022 both from Finishing Line Press.
Tom Uttech--painter, photographer and teacher--was born and raised in Wisconsin's north woods. His memories and experiences have emotionally and passionately influenced his art throughout his career. In 1965, Tom received his B.A. from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and his M.F.A in painting from the University of Cincinnati in 1976.
Leslie Vansen teaches painting and drawing courses from the introductory through graduate levels in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She makes acrylic paintings on canvas and paper that are presented regularly in invitational and juried exhibitions. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections nationwide, including the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Racine Art Museum.
Jason Vaughn had never visited the Midwest until he met his wife, a Wisconsin native. When they moved here Vaughn realized that rural places were fertile territory for photographic exploration. In 2011, his first child was born and he was diagnosed with cancer—two events that changed the way he thought about his relationship to nature. He started making large format photographs of the Wisconsin landscape which forced him to slow down and eventually changed the style of his work.
Originally a painter, Babette Wainwright discovered the pleasure and power of expressing herself with clay, making sculptures which are informed both by her African roots, and by the work of the pre-Colombian people of Haiti, the Arawaks. In 2000, she earned an MFA in Ceramics at UW Madison.
Leslie Walfish is the Director of Galleries, Campus Curator, and an Instructor in the Art Department at UW Oshkosh. She has an MA in Art History from the University of Arizona and an MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Leslie moved to Wisconsin in 2007 and has worked in at a number of the state’s great campus art galleries including Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Galleries, UW Green Bay’s Lawton Gallery, and UW Stevens Point’s Edna Carlsten Gallery.
Since 2015, Lindley Warren has been shooting The Meadows, a meditation on her family members and their troubled history. “My photographs bridge the intersection between my familial experience in poverty and my current life and they reflect my reality as an economically insecure artist and academic.” In addition to her imagemaking, Warren is an editor and curator who leverages digital platforms to reach global audiences.
Comfort M. Wasikhongo is an American painter of African American and Kenyan heritage. Born and raised in Madison, Wasikhongo earned recognition as an artist as early as elementary school. After high school, Wasikhongo studied a year at Florida A & M University in Tallahassee, which helped him develop a social outlook that he brings to his artwork. This consciousness further deepened when he moved to Chicago to attend Chicago State University, where he studied weightlifting and art.
Wisconsin Academy Offices
1922 University Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin 53726
Phone: 608.733.6633
James Watrous Gallery
3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street
Madison, WI 53703
Phone: 608.733.6633 x25
