On Show in our Mezzanine Art Gallery June 5 – September 3, 2026
This summer exhibition celebrates the enduring connection between art and nature. Each of the four featured local artists demonstrates their unique interpretations of landscapes, forests, waterways, wildflowers, and other natural elements, captured in a singular moment. Spanning from realism to abstraction, and sometimes blending the two, these pieces transport viewers through expressive brushstrokes, vibrant hues, and nuanced perspectives. Watercolor, gouache, oil, acrylic, and encaustic exalt the natural world that has inspired humans since the dawn of artistic creation.
Read the artist statements and bios below to learn about each featured artist.
Anne Reed
When creating artistic representations, it’s hard to fully capture the immersive experience of being in a place. Conveying the intricacies of how light forms color and the living, flowing energy of nature is a true challenge. My painting approach focuses on color and expressive marks, demonstrating how I navigate the path between realism and abstraction when representing the world around me. Through brush marks, I express movement and vibration. By working with color in this way, I capture the way color seems to really behave; the “yellow” or “blue” in a scene never sit in the object we would identify as yellow or blue, but radiate into a presence that pervades the whole.
Anne Reed is a Milwaukee-based abstract artist whose work explores memory, landscape, and emotional experience through layered color, texture, and mark-making. After careers in law and nonprofit leadership, including service as the Wisconsin Humane Society CEO and Milwaukee Film interim CEO, she now devotes much of her time to painting and other creative pursuits. Her work has been exhibited in the North Point Lighthouse Occasional Artists show since 2018 and is held in private collections. Reed possesses a deep love for Schlitz Audubon Nature Center and has found true joy in capturing its vibrance and color.
Lynn Rix
I love the challenge of looking at a familiar scene and simplifying it into shapes, colors, and my own vision. Painting from life outside, with quick brush work and a limited palette, forces me to work spontaneously before the light changes. The beauty of Lake Michigan in winter, along the Center’s shoreline, is particularly inspiring for me. In a boat in the summer or bundled up in the winter, I embrace it all with joy.
Lynn Rix began painting in 1995 while living in the south of France. She was physically and emotionally compelled to try to capture the area’s beauty on canvas. This motivation has sustained her in the pursuit of creating the fresh canvas in an impressionistic manner “en plein air’. She heads outside looking for inspiration, sets up her easel, and quickly captures the essence of the scene and her joy of life in oil.
May Klisch
I embrace the fluidity of my media, using fine brushstrokes alongside pours, drags, slashes, and overlays to evoke emotion and movement. Sanding back and layering add depth, while unexpected “accidents” become integral to the final piece. The unknown is not just a possibility in my process—it’s essential.
May Klisch is a Singapore-born, American contemporary artist based in Shorewood, Wisconsin. A national award winner, her work spans realism to abstraction, often blending the two. A colorist at heart, she experiments with watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and oil, drawing inspiration from places, emotions, and personal history.
Mary Mendla
I create artworks that express my love for the land, especially wild spaces. My sensitivity to color and nuance has led me to express this love of nature through seeing with a quiet eye, a way to discern atmospheric shifts in color, texture, and shape with deep sensitivity. What comes through each piece is a combination of gathered visual inspiration from nature, remembered life experiences, and the feelings that remain long after an experience has passed. My use of abstraction encourages the viewer to see deeply through the surface, beyond the physical realm, to experience the artwork through the heart and spirit.
Mary Mendla is an abstract artist based in Southeastern Wisconsin along the Lake Michigan shore. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, Mary has formed a career full of creativity and joy. She has been on a journey through her art that has taken her in many creative directions including painting, fiber art, apparel design, photography, video, and especially teaching.
