Folliard Gallery Gears Up for Fall Art Season Art Preview

By Peggy Sue Dunigan

A quartet of talented men arrives for three exhibitions at Tory Folliard Gallery this fall. The exhibitions, opening Sept. 9, include Wisconsin artists Mark Brautigam and Peter Barrickman, St. Louis’ Mark Horton and New York’s James Benjamin Franklin.

Brautigam’s exhibition features photographs from the suite On Wisconsin (several are also on display at Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art). Folliard selected archival prints from limited-edition sets that depict beauty, isolation, irony and more in rural Wisconsin. Haunting images portray isolated byways and towns that conjure apparitions from the past and an empty longing for the future.

In “Cityscapes,” Horton creates imaginary vistas of urban areas in paintings that possess both familiarity and strangeness. The visual duality in Horton’s oil on linen paintings asks observers to create their own narratives—to allow their thoughts to wander through concrete streets studded with skyscrapers.

Folliard’s East Gallery frequently offers Milwaukee a glimpse of individuals making their ascent in the art world. “Interior Loot” presents Milwaukee’s Barrickman and New York’s Franklin. The concept of “interior loot” plays on the psychological underpinnings of ambiguous meanings found in jokes, riddles and hidden treasures.

Franklin covers intimate paintings with a shiny resin that sparkles like candy under a glass counter. Barrickman’s works offer a two-dimensional pastiche of ingenuity from the multiple art mediums he pursues. “Interior Loot” promises to provide an exterior artistic bounty.

To celebrate all four artists, Folliard hosts a 5-8 p.m. reception on Friday, Sept. 9.