This fall, the gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix program selected seven Milwaukee-based artists for its seven-week accelerator program. Each received mentorship, education and $10,000 in grant funding. The cohort of accomplished local artists includes Lois Bielefeld, Morgan Bouldes, Nohemí Chávez Contreras, Nomka Enkhee, Grant Gill, Justin Goodrum and Okja Kwon.
The program is a collaboration between gener8tor, which runs accelerators for startups, and Sherman Phoenix, a foundation dedicated to building community and increasing socioeconomic opportunities for people of color, with the support of the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s Diverse Business Assistance Grant. The artists were chosen from a pool of 140 applicants by a panel of industry professionals.
Along with artistic guidance, the mentorship portion of the program also helps artists grow their professional practices, with education about sales, artist statement writing, ecommerce, branding and social media.
The program will conclude with an exhibition featuring all seven of the artist’s work on Saturday, Nov. 9, at Sherman Phoenix Marketplace from 2-5 p.m.
Here are the cohort’s seven artists:
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Lois Bielefeld
In 2010, photographer Lois Bielefeld returned to their hometown of Milwaukee after living in New York, where they worked in the fashion industry. “I generally make staged photographs, usually with people in them, thinking about different ideas, a lot to do with the home and the ways we navigate that space within our relationships,” Bielefeld says. “[The accelerator program] is really making me revaluate my entire practice at a granular level.”
Bielefeld is investing some of the grant money into a new computer for the post-production aspects of their work, as their old one needed replacing. At the end-of-program exhibition, Bielefeld will be showing a collection called Commit to Memory, which features their parents. “I’m showing a sequence of images that I’m really excited about, it really looks into the beautiful relationship between them,” Bielefeld says.
Morgan Bouldes
Morgan Bouldes is a multi-hyphenate artist. She is an assistant professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD), the owner of Covering, a skin and hair care line; and an experimental storyteller through her photography, installation, writing and quilting.
Some of the most impactful moments of the accelerator program, Bouldes says, have been the talks from other artists. “Even though I have jumped into the realm of doing performance-based art, it’s like there is always going to be someone looking at your work. But when you can hold onto that part of you that makes [art] just to make it, I think it comes from a really authentic place,” Bouldes said.
The first quilt that Bouldes ever made, called Elders Quilt, will be featured in the end-of-program exhibition. The material is compiled from the clothing of elders in her family, including her aunts, grandparents and late mother. In the center of the quilt, there is one piece of her clothing. It is crafted with geometric patches in clusters of eight, a number that symbolizes new beginnings for her. “A lot of my practice has been processing grief, and the interconnectedness of humans and really examining the human condition,” Bouldes says. “I’ve always been really fixated with the ethereal, and as I grow into my faith that’s something I want to learn how to have more of a conversation about within my art practice.”
Nohemí Chávez Contreras
A first-generation American, Nohemí Chávez Contreras’ family comes from Guanajuato, Mexico. In her recent work through her brand MODA LIBRE, Contreras has been reconstructing traditional Mexican textiles and common household items into modern, wearable art. “I wanted our identities and where we come from to be rightfully represented and authentically told,” Contreras says. “I haven’t really seen anything like that before, so I felt like I had to do it.”
One of the most enriching aspects of the accelerator program for Contreras has been the connections she has made. She is currently working on a new collection that is expected to be released next spring.The collection will be a mixture of ready to wear and art to wear pieces. Some will be made entirely from scratch; others from reconstructed items that can be found in a common Mexican household. “Really giving those common items a new purpose,” Contreras said. “Just shining a light on where we are from, and redefining high fashion through that lens.”
At the end-of-program exhibition, Contreras will showcase two new pieces that are both reconstructed from home materials. She says that the work demonstrates “taking something mundane that the average person sees no value in, or would never consider high fashion or high end, and repurposing that, reconstructing it and showcasing it in a new, beautiful, wearable way.”
Nomka Enkhee
Nomka Enkhee is a Mongolian-born, Milwaukee-based artists who works in sculpture, drawing and performance. She incorporates language and poetry into her practice and analyzes themes of domesticity, repetition and the functions of translation.
Enkee is currently working toward her BFA at MIAD, after receiving her pre-diploma from the Kunsthochschule in Mainz, Germany. She has recently finished artist residencies at Special Collections Milwaukee, Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art in Norfolk, CT, and Image Text Workshop Residency in Ithaca, NY.
She is also the founder of Pferde Books, a publishing press that started in 2023, which produces art and poetry books focusing on BIPOC artists. This month, you can also see Enkhee’s work at a solo show at Woodland Pattern.
Grant Gill
Grant Gill is a Milwaukee-based educator and image maker. His prints and photographs explore new and ethereal angles on objects, often with manipulated and fractured light. He has worked with the Brussels Royal Opera House, the Water~Stone Review, and has exhibited around Wisconsin and globally, including at the Var Gallery here in Milwaukee.
Gill graduated with his MFA in Studio Art from the College of Design, Architecture Art and Panning at the University of Cincinnati, along with his BFA in Photography from MIAD. He is a co-curator for MIAD’s Usable Space Gallery and Perspectives Gallery, and in 2023, he founded Blanket Editions, a project that reproduces artwork on woven blankets, which support local artists and shelters.
Justin Goodrum
Justin Goodrum has been making films for the past 10 years, the past five through his production company Good Entertainment. In his work he explores themes that stem from his personal experiences and the mental health disparities in Milwaukee’s Black community. “I look for my work to be entertaining yet have impactful messages that hopefully change lives and effect positive change in the world,” Goodrum says.
Goodrum had known from a young age that he wanted to be a filmmaker. In his short film, The Stigma of the Durag, he dives into a personal experience from school, when he was labeled a gang member for wearing a durag. “The experience of it stuck with me, so when I got the chance to create a visual art film, it was something I wanted to explore,” he says.
This short will be featured in the end-of-program exhibition.
Goodrum is currently working towards his first feature film. He is looking to go into production soon with the help of the program’s grant. The film will explore mental health in Milwaukee’s Black community.
Okja Kwon
Kwon is a Korean-born artist and educator based in Milwaukee. In her practice, she explores how history can create complex negotiations for ideas of nationalism, how this impacts those deemed as “other” and how diasporic belonging regenerates through space and time.
She teaches writing and critical thinking at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee through the department of Art and Design, and works as a cultural strategist and editor with educational institutions, creatives and artists. She earned an MS in the cultural foundations of education, along with a BFA in painting and drawing and print and narrative forms from UWM.
