Barrel O’ Monkeys, a recently established artist collective, is made up of ten multidisciplinary creatives who all majored in Fine Arts & New Studio Practice. The team consists of the founders of the collective, Kennedy Gerber, Sydney Short and Caesar Nguyen, along with other members Elliot Hagen, Melany Hernandez, Row Wissmiller, Ellery Pascual, Jayne Henninsgaard, Anna Barr and Amanda Smithivas.
All these artists wear different hats as a means of survival; Short as a gallery assistant at Var Gallery, Gerber in historical and private collections and a museum assistant, and Nguyen as an EMT. I met with all three of them at the studio space in Riverwest after their work days to talk all things art.
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The monkey’s studio space is woody and fresh with possibility: despite having only gotten into the studio in June, the team has already built temporary walls decorated with their artwork and their windows have been trademarked in red lettering with the collective’s name, chosen in honor of a piece Nguyen completed using Barrel of Monkeys toys.
The idea for Barrel O’ Monkeys originated after Gerber, Short and Nguyen put together a curated exhibit as college juniors that featured over 20 artists at Task Creative in Cudahy, with the hope to bridge the gap between illustration and fine arts.
“Going to galleries in the Milwaukee community, I felt like I couldn’t see my work in some of these spaces I was visiting,” Gerber said. “We wanted to give people an opportunity to have their work in a gallery space, even if it’s not necessarily considered fine art.”
I, a non-artist, nodded along for as long as possible until I had to ask “wait, what is fine art?”
“Well, that’s the question,” laughed Nguyen. “People often see fine art as less commercial and design focused than illustration, but some illustrators want their work to be seen in a more conceptual light rather than conveying a straightforward message.”
This initial gallery created an open space that pushed young artists to approach a piece without thinking about its productivity.
“For a lot of students that we showed in our exhibition, it was their first time ever being in a space like that.” Short said.
The collective found their now-studio in Riverwest, a year after that idea sprouted and started working on the space. An entire wall that was previously covered in mirrors was stripped out to become a clean white base to showcase art. Revamping the studio also offered a different way to take a break from creating.
“Whenever I got stuck on a project it was like okay, time to clean, time to paint walls,” Gerber said.
Not only has the studio given the group a common workspace as well as a public gallery, but it has also preserved some of the academic critique they thought would be lost with graduation.
“It was really drilled into my head that the community at school is not the community that we would have access to once we graduated,” Short said.
The group members regularly run into one another in the studio space, and the presence of previous classmates and friends helps encourage their individual practices to progress. The three remarked on how helpful it is to receive constructive feedback from each other as well as support and validation when they may be doubting themselves.
“There’s a lot of input from one another, we’re getting that critique that our professors said we wouldn’t have when we left,” Nguyen expressed.
The collective recently put on their very first public event on Aug. 9, an exhibition and studio warming that displayed work from the members. The event lasted over four hours and garnered between 200-300 people, from friends and colleagues to previous professors and MIAD underclassmen.
“There were people I’ve never seen before,” remarked Gerber. “That made me feel like I’m actually making an impact.”
The group plans on hosting public events at least every other month in the studio, with plans to be involved in Milwaukee’s Doors Open event on Sept. 26-27 as well as hosting an activity at Var Gallery’s Summer’s Over Grill & Chill on Sept. 5.
They regularly mull over dreams for the collective, like hosting artist talks or Gerber’s idea of a karaoke critique, where a karaoke performance serves as the icebreaker for an art critique.
“We need to bring the crazy back to the art scene and I feel like doing the most oddball things is the way to do it,” Gerber said. “And that’s another thing — a lot of our work is just silly and comical, like poking fun at stuffy, contemporary practice, this space is serious, but our art isn’t always that serious.”
The collective just launched their Patreon, where those interested in supporting the team can pay $3 a month for a monthly newsletter or upgrade to $7 a month to join their exclusive print club. Each member of the collective is assigned a month where they’ll be responsible for writing the newsletter, going over all the updates and work accomplished that month. The artist will also have to create a print that will be sent out to every member of the print club.
I asked the trio, at the end of our interview, what motivates all of them to keep making art.
“It’s the best outlet,” Short shared. “Having an idea in your head and being able to materialize something out of that idea, is such an addicting process that it just makes me want to keep doing it.”
“For me, I feel like I’m possessed to tell a certain story,” Nguyen laughed, “Life experience informs a lot of my art, so I feel like I have to say it in a different way than just talking: showing.”
“The thing that keeps me making is that someone later is gonna find this and be impacted by it, and I need to keep working for that one random person,” Gerber expressed. “It’s also the best way to capture history; whenever people are thinking back to a time period, they’re thinking about the visuals of it, so creating is kind of like a diary.”
