Past Exhibits

The annual Northern National Art Competition is a cooperative venture between Nicolet College Arts & Enrichment and the Northern Arts Council that aims to share resources as well as community art and cultural activities in Forest, Langlade, Lincoln, Oneida, and Vilas Counties. The show attracts hundreds of entries nationwide, showcasing a cross section of contemporary art in a variety of two-dimensional mediums.

This year’s show will be juried by Debra Brehmer, an arts writer and curator, who owns and operates Portrait Society Gallery, a contemporary art space in Milwaukee. She was also the former editor and publisher of Art Muscle magazine. Prior to opening the gallery, she taught art history as an adjunct professor for 10 years at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

The opening reception is an opportunity for attendees to get a first peek at one of the premiere art shows in Northern Wisconsin, and then join Brehmer as she shares her remarks on the curation of this prestigious show.

Registration deadline for artist consideration is Friday, March 15. Submit your entry at callforentry.org. Tickets to the reception are $20 and include heavy appetizers, refreshments, and thoughtful comments by the judge. Purchase tickets in advance through the Nicolet College Art Gallery by calling 715.365.4556 or emailing artgallery@nicoletcollege.edu. Tickets can also be purchased at Childs Frame Company in Rhinelander and from members of the Northern Arts Council. Limited seating available.

Anyone 18 years or older is invited to submit art for the Wisconsin Regional Art Program (WRAP) exhibit, which will culminate in a day-long artist workshop including a lecture or demonstration and educational critique. Meritorious work selected from the numerous regional exhibits around the state will be displayed at the Annual State Art Exhibit in Madison.

WRAP exhibits/workshops began in 1940 as an outreach program of UW-Madison, to encourage the creative growth of Wisconsin non-professional artists from rural areas. Now administered by the Association of Wisconsin Artists, WRAP exhibit/workshops are held throughout the year in over twenty-five locations all around the state. Think you want to see if you got what it takes? Enter this year’s WRAP at Nicolet College! Entry deadline January 22, 2024.

For more details and to submit artwork, visit wiscartists.wildapricot.org or contact the Nicolet College Art Gallery for more information.

Reception: Thursday, December 7 | 5-7 pm

It’s not a stretch to see the artistry in hair, makeup, and nail design. The Nicolet College Art Gallery invites students, faculty, and regional artists to share artworks related to themes of cosmetology. The science of cosmetics meets the art of beautification in this exhibition.

Presented by Nicolet College Arts & Enrichment “The Art of…” series was launched in 2022 with a goal to tie campus programs to the visual arts activities on campus. Each year a new program will be highlighted and a call for art will go out locally, regionally, and to Nicolet students and faculty. The vision is that our Northwoods community will see that art is all around us and there is creativity inherent in the work that we all do, especially in some of the specialized skills that Nicolet College cultivates. The “Art of…” exhibitions will highlight Nicolet College’s unique dual mission as both champion of the arts in the community and a leader in occupational training and education.

Nik Nerburn’s exhibition tends to personal and familial stories, using regional vernacular artistic forms like yard art, model making, dollhouses, and tramp style wood carving. His photographs reveal miniature domestic spaces unraveling by way of personal and mythological disaster. Mostly composed inside of dollhouses, his photographic tableaus embody precariousness and turmoil rather than the dollhouse’s middle class ideal. Using traditional processes such as whittling, chip-carving, frame making, and metal casting, Nerburn braids narratives of both whimsy and catastrophe. This is where a giant secret lives in a tiny house, stuck like a piano you can’t fit out the door.