Shana McCaw is an artist-curator with over 18 years of experience researching, teaching, and working in the Milwaukee area. She is currently Senior Curator at the Charles Allis and Villa Terrace Art Museums in Milwaukee, WI. McCaw’s past projects include curating and directing the Northwestern Mutual Gallery at Cardinal Stritch University; assisting in the design and installation of five exhibitions in partnership with the Chipstone Foundation at the Milwaukee Art Museum; teaching 3-D design, sculpture, and domestic field study courses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and Cardinal Stritch University; and developing an internationally recognized art practice with her husband and collaborator, Brent Budsberg. McCaw and Budsberg received the Mary Nohl Fellowship for Individual Artists in the Established category in 2008 and 2014. They were also recently awarded residencies in Wendover, UT with the Center for Land Use Interpretation (2012) and in Death Valley, CA with the Goldwell Open Air Museum (2013). McCaw earned her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1999. She currently lives in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, and her studio is also based there.

Shana McCaw’s recent curatorial projects include Carlos Hermosilla Alvarez and Colin Matthes: Echoing Concerns, All In: Photographs by Lois Bielefeld, Clandestine Possessions, and Family Time (recent work by James Pederson, Mariah Tate Klemens, and Jackson Hunt) at the Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee, WI; Strata & Cipher (prints by Barbara Manger and sculpture by Richard Taylor) and Back to School (a group show) at the Villa Terrace Art Museum; the following six exhibitions curated for the Northwestern Mutual Art Gallery at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, WI: Midwest Field Reporters (recent collaborative work by Jenna Knapp, Zach Hill, and Kayle Karbowski); Digital Craft: Redesign, Remake, Reimagine (recent work by artist/designer Frankie Flood); Everyday Mysteries: Emily Belknap, Grant Gill, Jon Horvath (recent photography and sculpture); A Culture of Evil (recent work by Sarah Nitschke and Robin Assner); The Collection Project (a display case exhibition of collections amassed by local people); and New Histories and Old Futures: The Timeless Art of Story (backdrops and small works by Sue Lawton). Previous to these, she co-curated Gigantic at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN (2005), and Destination, a MARN production, in Milwaukee, WI (2003).

McCaw and Budsberg’s recent exhibitions of their personal work include The Sub-Suburban at the Suburban in Milwaukee, WI; The Cleft and Shimmering Hour at Portrait Society in Milwaukee, WI; The Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art; Living Rooms at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI; and A Tenuous Framework at the Caestecker Art Gallery in Ripon, WI. They were also recently awarded “On Our Radar” status with the Creative Capital Foundation in New York, and their self-published book of photographs, titled States of Matter, is archived at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, CA, and has also been collected by the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg Untitled Photograph 2016

Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg Detail of digital sketch for Skew (in production) Opening May 2018 for Sculpture Milwaukee

The Inhabitants Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg Film still from The Inhabitants (in production)