We are thrilled to announce the following artists chosen through our Call for Art in partnership with Amplify Arts! Amplify Arts was a wonderful, guiding partner who helped facilitate the call and community jury process that selected the chosen works. Eight new videos were selected from 25 submissions to be showcased on the Video Wall in the Dock. Three art activations were selected from 9 submissions. All artists are from the Omaha Metro area.
Video Wall Art
We will be hosting a Video Wall Premiere on Thursday, March 7 to showcase all selected video wall pieces and meet the artists. Following this event, the selected videos will be added to our regular rotation of digital art that is played in the Ashton on a daily basis.
Lagoon Lewis| Market Scroll
Bio: Alex Cole is an animator and illustrator known for her dark and whimsical characters.
Artwork Overview: “Market Stroll” is a looping animation of a girl taking a stroll through a market. The animation is meant to be played in the background to help add to the atmosphere of whatever space it’s in. As you watch the video, you will notice small details and objects incorporated into the scene waiting for you to find them.
Instagram | Website
Quinn Pankowski | Sequential Paintings
Bio: Joe is an Artist involved with drawing, animation, teaching, telling stories, diy, computer graphics, video, and dreams.
Artwork Overview: Sequential Paintings is an animation showcasing the collection of animated paintings created by the artist over the past couple of years.
Instagram | Facebook | Website
Kim Hager | The Fourth World
Bio: Kim Hager is an Omaha artist with a background in media arts and motion graphics, whose personal work is inspired by the natural world and her Native American heritage (Ute/Navajo(Diné)).
Artwork Overview: The video piece The Fourth World is inspired by the considerable Navajo(Diné) creation story in which the four planes of existence are explained, the world we now inhabit being the fourth.
Instagram | Website
ProxyFlesh | Violent Textures of Nature and Flesh
Bio: Matthew Strasburger, of ProxyFlesh, is an emerging filmmaker whose work expresses the physical, emotional and psychological relationships between the body and the natural world.
Artwork Overview: Violent Textures of Nature and Flesh is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between film, sound and movement artists, using dance and haptic cinema to render the body’s evolving relationship to the natural world.
Instagram – Matthew Strasburger | Website
Sener & Fu| Aztlán
Bio: Sener & Fu are two artists who met in Omaha and are collaborating on this visual art piece called Aztlan. Sener is originally from Mexico and resides in Omaha while Fu grew up in China, moved to Omaha, and now resides in Chicago. Their work centers on the use of digital technology to transmit new landscapes and immersive experiences through visuals and sound.
Artwork Overview: Aztlán, a visual exploration, merges post-digital art with Aztec history, the work serves as a nexus for engagement on the cultural implications of “Aztlán.” Displayed on The Ashton’s Video Wall in Millwork Commons, it questions historical notions, inspiring shared contemplation of our roots and fostering unity. Aztlán is an ode to the elusive homeland, sparking discussions on the evolving nature of historical narratives, migration, and artistic expression.
Instagram | Facebook | Website
Ian Tredway| Entropical
Bio: Ian Tredway, an artist and motion designer based in Omaha, explores materiality, speculative futures, and imaginary worlds through a blend of traditional and emerging mediums.
Artwork Overview: “Entropical” is an augmented experimental video that attempts an alternative storytelling process through the interweaving of previously disparate photographs, digitally altered images, and videos.
Instagram | Website
awe | Poet /s
Bio: awe is Ikran Hamza, Kristin Zahra, and Tessa Wedberg. We all have practices including poetry, filmmaking, animation, and beyond. Since we love the wildness in experimentation, discovery in play, and healing in connection, we decided to venture out with a location, poem, and a camera – no script, shot list, or schedule. We let nature, open space, movement inspire and speak to us. We listened in close – relied on trust and intuition among the collections we have been honored to hold, share, and offer.
Artwork Overview: This piece is a reimagining of a longer piece we created together. We are blending living poems with analog film processes, archival family film reels, animation, and live action. Bringing analog and digital practices together lit up new ways of seeing. It helped us ask questions about how isolation and connection shape and transform us and influence our sense of home across memory and time.
Instagram – Tessa V. Wedberg | Instagram – Ikran Hamza| Facebook | Website
Joi Katskee| Untitled
Bio: Joi Katskee is a Midwest painter, fashion designer, jewelry designer, video artist, writer and radio host.
Artwork Overview: A punk-rock collage in motion that fuses elements of the city and music in hope for viewers to get inspired by their surroundings.
Instagram | Facebook | Website
Art Activations
The art activations will be hosted by a variety of artists and/or artist groups throughout 2024. Each activation will have its own opening reception or event associated with it. Stay tuned to our social media and events calendar for details.
Alex Jacobsen | Sound Sculpture Installation
Bio: Alex Jacobsen is an artist exploring memory, corporeality, and psychoacoustics primarily through sound.
Artwork Overview: Sculptures that build upon the historical and acoustic features of the Millwork Neighborhood.
Instagram | Website
Ilaamen Pelshaw| Site Specific Art Installation
Bio: Ilaamen is an American visual artist born in Guatemala and based in Omaha Nebraska; she creates art that is colorful, warm and happy just like her heritage, as a celebration of the little joys of everyday life.
Artwork Overview: This project consists in an exhibition of paintings depicting anthropomorphic characters celebrating the different individuals, businesses and elements that are part of the Millwork Commons. The project concludes with information gathered from the people of Millwork Commons, by asking them what are the key elements to create a healthy community.
Instagram | Facebook | Website
Vōx Dance Collective | Dance Workshops & Performance
Bio: Established in 2021, Vōx Dance Collective is an Omaha based modern dance company with a deep passion for collaboration, people, and the stories that make them who they are.
Artwork Overview: Vōx Dance Collective will host a series of workshops that highlight a different area of Millwork Commons and invite the community to experience dance in a welcoming environment; we will use movement creation and manipulation techniques to explore the effects of hustle culture and investigate the feelings created by the busyness of our lives.
Instagram | Facebook
About the Call for Art
Millwork Commons partnered with Amplify Arts to facilitate a call for art to the Omaha community to select new digital artworks and art activations for the neighborhood. The Call for Art took place between September and November 2023. We were blown away by the talent and creativity showcased by all those who submitted artwork. To learn more about the process, click here.
