Candidate Statement

I joined UW-Milwaukee in 2019 as an Associate Professor after achieving tenure at Oklahoma State University in 2013. As the Painting & Drawing Area Head at UWM, I have continually worked to shape the Painting & Drawing area, as well as think holistically about all aspects of the Art & Design Department, the larger UWM university structure, and consider how I might best serve the communities of the city of Milwaukee. In 2024, I assumed a leadership role as Co-Chair of the Department of Art & Design.

The pandemic introduced substantial organizational and teaching challenges for faculty and staff in the Studio Art fields. Throughout 2020-2021, I poured countless hours into structuring online delivery for studio courses so that the work would be both fulfilling and functional for the students enrolled during that period. This required crafting entirely new delivery methods and adjusting all P&D course curriculum for accessibility, remote work functionality in students’ homes, and rethinking how to best offer robust opportunities for discussion, research and experiential learning. Re-emerging to in-person classes a year later also offered unique situations requiring further adaptation of teaching modes and methods. The changes in teaching during 2020 signaled a new era of hybrid modes of delivery in higher education, and I have continued to maintain rigorous online course sites, dense with student resources and conscious of accessibility for all students in the classroom. Despite challenges during my first years at UWM, I have continually worked to play a vital role in supporting student growth, advancing our field, and through my mentorship of students, strived to enrich both the university and the broader arts community of Milwaukee.

Creative Research Summary

My research as an academic in the field of Studio Art focuses on generating artwork, participating in exhibitions (juried, invitational, group, solo, and of regional, national or international significance) and mentions in catalog publications, reviews and reproductions of my work. My research includes participation in competitive artist residencies, learning and incorporating new technologies, seeking public, academic, and scholarly lecturing opportunities, curatorial opportunities, and achieving inclusion into art collections. Additionally, my research entails applying for artist grants and scholarly funding opportunities.

Exhibitions

Most significant for a studio art academic is a solo exhibition, two-person or small group (3-6 person) exhibition. Solo and small group exhibitions garner reviews, attention from curators and collectors, and public discourse on an art academic’s research. Large group exhibitions (invitational or juried) are ranked in significance relevant to the venue, the importance of the curator, and the status and caliber of the other participating artists in the exhibition. Juried exhibitions are often large-scale competitions with hundreds of national and international professional artists and art academics participating.

Since achieving tenure, I have produced work for twelve solo or two-person exhibitions through the support of eighteen grants funding my research. I have generated multiple bodies of new work, focusing on painting, drawing and collage, and the overlapping conversations and potentials of these mediums. I have additionally worked closely with gallery representation at Walker Fine Art in Denver for the last eight years and my work has been sought by private and corporate collectors through architecture and design firms, resulting in sales of work through the gallery.

I have been featured in nine small group exhibitions with inclusion of a series (multiple works) as well as having works included in twenty-two invitational or juried larger group exhibitions. As documented in my CV, group exhibitions have occurred with artists of known international and national reputations in Denver, CO, Kansas City, KS, Tulsa, OK, Raleigh, NC, Houston, TX, Chicago, IL, Brooklyn, NY, New Orleans, LA, Los Angeles, CA, Toronto, ON, Milwaukee, WI, Ann Arbor, MI, Fort Worth, TX and other locations. I have two forthcoming solo exhibitions scheduled for Spring 2026. My solo and collaborative exhibition work has been covered in media outlets such as the Denver Post, Urban Milwaukee, Westworld, The Oklahoman (NewsOK), Pelican Bomb, NOLA Defender, and Art New England: Contemporary Art and Culture. I have delivered seventeen public talks, workshops, and interviews across the U.S. at universities, museums, public art centers, conferences and galleries.

Among the twenty-two competitive juried exhibitions (regional, national, and international) curators and jurors who have selected my work include Claire Christie, proprietor of Christie Contemporary in Toronto, Amy Bauer and Brian Boldon of In Plain Sight Studio in Minneapolis, Marshall Price, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum of Art, Rachel Wolff, a contributing writer and editor for New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, The Daily Beast, Departures, Details, Elle, Town & Country, Condé Nast Traveler, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chicago Magazine, Cultured, ARTnews, Art + Auction, and Modern Painters, and Shana Nys Dambrot, former arts editor at LA Weekly, contributing writer to the Village Voice, Flaunt, WhiteHot, and Alta Journal.

Competitive Residencies

Residencies are designed to allow artists a working environment removed from their daily responsibilities. Residencies vary in number of artists granted residency, size and scale (national and international), profit or non-profit, and level of professionalization. Residencies can serve a similar function to juried exhibitions in that selection for a residency can illustrate a competitive ranking in a very large national or international pool of artists. I have been accepted into three competitive Artist Residency programs since my appointment as Associate Professor: the Kohler Arts & Industry Residency, ArtServancy, and Kolaj/Kasini House in New Orleans. Each residency has been supported with some funding through a university or external grant. Kohler is the most prominent residency among the three I have participated in since achieving tenure. I was selected from a pool of 350 international applicants for one of the three available spots for the Summer 2019 Kohler Arts & Industry Residency, which led to the inclusion of one of my pieces in the John Michael Kohler Permanent Collection. At Kohler, I was trained to use specialized technologies for industrialized casting and ceramics production, gave public talks, and I generated a body of ceramic elements for use in an ongoing larger installation project. My ArtServancy Residency in 2025 has included a $500 stipend award and will culminate in a new body of work and solo exhibition, building connections to land conservancy efforts in Milwaukee and the larger region of the state of Wisconsin. At Kolaj in New Orleans, a community-based collage piece is planned in November 2025 which addresses my ongoing research and has been supported through a $750 artist fellowship award.

Catalogs, Exhibition Statements, and Reviews

Post-tenure, my work has been featured in twenty-three publications and online sites-- among them being reproductions of my work for album covers, published book covers, and as a chapter illustration within a drawing textbook. Gateways to Drawing by Stephen Gardener through Thames and Hudson Press, 2018, features my drawing as an example of using simulated texture as a lead compositional strategy in drawing. My work has also been featured in exhibition catalogs and reviews of exhibitions. Inclusion of an artist in a catalog usually indicates inclusion in an exhibition, and a written text that situates the artist’s work in the context of the exhibition’s curatorial theme. Catalogs are often produced as saleable publications, included in museum, gallery, and academic libraries, and collected by artists and academics as discursive tools. Review of individual works or an exhibition is evaluative, can be positive or negative, and often help to articulate the impact and significance of an artist’s presence in an exhibition.

Sample Texts

"Comprised of drawings and paintings that work in concert and yet contrast each other in scale, color, value, temperature, and media, Feral Beauty and Opulent Decay invites the viewer to an active form of looking. In fact, these works demand it. The visual access to Piehl’s work lies in what Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) theorized regarding the part-to-whole relationship—the whole is other than the sum of its parts. Individual elements that work together to form a larger whole can be perceived as a subsequent and separate entity. Through this perceptual shift, the viewer moves from the whole to process the individually abstracted source material, its coagulation, and the embedded meaning—not only in the material itself, but also Piehl’s intended messaging in her conjoining of the visual content…"

(Excerpt from Feral Beauty and Opulent Decay Exhibition Essay, Curator Mary Mikel Stump)

"One intuits that there are dark things hidden inside of Piehl’s baroque creations. They are just a little too luxurious to be real, but incredibly inviting all the same. We can pick out pearls, prisms, antlers; sometimes a honeycomb, feathers, somehow bound together in a cohesive but unknowable object. There are bits of luxurious fabric, so much to investigate and identify that the eye is continuously moving…. Piehl demonstrates a graceful rendering technique which allows gossamer, gauzy fronds and bits of ribbon to float under imaginary water alongside strings of pearls... such a remnant speaks of the fantasy that Piehl’s work inspires."

(NOLA Defender, Cheryl Castjohns)

"The impressive amount of detail in Angie Piehl's drawings and paintings bring the fetish to life and seduce us with their display of discipline and indulgence. Her work contributes to the ongoing conversation in contemporary art by artists like Cathy de Monchaux and Megan Greene that questions gender roles and assumptions with a playfully dark edge."

(Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, Fellowship Award Statement, Allison Peters Quinn, Exec. Director and Chief Curator, Elmhurst Art Museum)

Collections

Twenty-four pieces of my work have been purchased or sponsored through artist in residence in various collections (private, corporate, public/permanent) since 2013. Seven pieces have become part of permanent collections at museums or academic institutions. Most recently, in 2023 three of my collage prints were collected by Harper College into their permanent collection, which includes artists such as Sol LeWitt, Alice Neal, Romare Bearden, Roy Lichtenstein and Nick Cave. In 2019, a ceramic piece produced during my Kohler Arts & Industry residency was included in the John Michael Kohler Art Center’s Permanent Collection-- a collection of significance and broad national influence. In 2016, the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art acquired my print Bone Caboch, for its permanent collection.

Grants and Scholarly Funding

I have been awarded eighteen competitive university and regional grants in support of my research since receiving tenure, totaling roughly $33,480. Among these grants was a recent 2025 Nohl Suitcase Award, two UWM Research Assistance Fund Grants, and a faculty sabbatical award.

Professional Jurying

Of significance was my selection in 2023 as a Ruth Arts Artist Choice Award nominator, which required selecting and writing in advocacy of three non-profit (501c) arts organizations in nomination for a substantial funding award. Ruth Arts commonly awards millions in funding to selected arts organizations, and it was an honor to write in advocacy of two arts organizations which received large awards in 2023. Other selected nominators during my cycle included Alex Da Corte, Lorraine O’Grady, and Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds. I was also selected as a juror for the ACRE Residency in 2025, which draws upwards of 600 international artist applicants.

Public Lectures and Interviews

Since attaining tenure, I have delivered seventeen public lectures, presentations or talks addressing my own work and research, and two additionally addressing issues of contemporary queer art and art practice. Most significant among these were visiting artist lectures at academic venues. In 2025 at Clemson University, I was a visiting artist, which included two days of dialogue with students and faculty, and culminated in a well-attended public lecture on my work. At Harper College in Chicago, in addition to giving a visiting artist lecture on my work, conducted a gallery tour of my solo exhibition, and held critiques with art students.

Teaching Summary

I typically teach a 3/3-course load, apart from a 3/2-course load for my first year of employment, and semesters during 2024-2025 which included workload re-allocations for administrative appointments as a Co-Chair for the Department of Art & Design. I typically serve each semester on two to five MFA/MA Thesis candidate committees. I additionally support Classroom Assistantship credits and Independent Study/Directed Study credits with studio art students at the undergraduate and graduate level each semester. As the sole full-time faculty member and Area Head of the Painting & Drawing, I have focused on student success, curriculum development, and enriching opportunities for experiential learning. Classes I commonly teach include Intro Painting, Figure Painting, Painting Studio, Studio Art Capstones, and Independent Research Credits. I continually rotate myself into the schedule of classes at all levels (Intro, Intermediate, Advanced, Graduate) alternately having taught Drawing 2, Painting Strategies, Drawing Strategies and Drawing Studio as well. This has allowed me to see first-hand how students matriculate through the area, where project connections are possible between courses as learning scaffolds, and where redundancies or bottlenecks to enrollment access might be occurring within the area. During my time at UWM, I have developed content for seventeen different studio courses.

Program and Curricular Revisions

I became familiar with the student population by teaching within the existing curriculum and course sequence when I started at UWM in 2019. Teaching shifts to hybrid/online through the pandemic in 2020-2021 offered more insights and necessitated significant course adjustments. In 2021, I redesigned the overall curriculum sequence for the P&D Area, creating a new, cohesive course sequence for the 123-credit Studio Art BFA Degree Plan. Courses were revised and renamed for clarity and consistency within the Painting & Drawing area, problematic course stackings were eliminated, and course pre-requisites were adjusted to address enrollment bottlenecks, resulting in a flexible curriculum allowing more students the ability to access painting and drawing courses. This has increased overall enrollment in the area by making courses accessible to Art Education and Design & Visual Communication students through more flexible pre-requisites and course design.

My teaching practice is rooted in stressing competence in technique, diverse skill set development and craftsmanship in painting and drawing, as well as in promoting an understanding of the history, context, and conceptual potential of mediums. I foster an openness to and comfort with working across mediums and interdisciplinary approaches in the classroom. I brought these priorities and interdisciplinary comfort to contributions to the department’s revisions of the Studio Art degree plan as we underwent revisions based on NASAD feedback.

It is my ongoing goal that my students be informed observers, continually learning from art history and contemporary theory, researching interests and influences, and studying directly from the art that is available to them in galleries and museums, and hearing directly from professional artists working in their fields. I feel it is important that within this context of research students also discover, discuss and critique the different roles the artist plays in society, and that students of all abilities and walks of life have access and voice in the curriculum, and feel empowered and see themselves in the examples shown in class. How art can act as a communication device, how artists exist within society, how artists self-identify, and ultimately, how the art world identifies, labels or contextualizes various artists are all appropriate examinations within the learning process. It is important to me that students have the freedom to explore what questions, conflicts, or connections arise from these ideas as they progress through their academic program and enter the larger world as artists. I have brought an exciting range of visiting artists to the classroom and Painting & Drawing Area, and to UWM’s Artists Now series with these values in mind.

I have made numerous updates to the Painting & Drawing Area’s curriculum, especially with regards to making coursework more accessible to the larger body of Art & Design students. This has meant both concept/content revision in the coursework, as well as ongoing efforts towards outfitting the Painting & Drawing studio spaces for best practices, ADA compliance, updating faltering facilities such as radiators and sinks, replacing aging studio furniture, tools and other classroom supplies, and coordinating coursework around large-scale floor and window replacement projects in the 600+classroom Mitchell Hall historical building where UWM’s Painting & Drawing coursework is primarily located. I have updated and outfitted area classrooms to keep facilities operational, and I have continually assisted our facilities staff in making choices to best serve students for classroom support. This has been a necessary, ongoing process for courses to be effectively taught in the area.

Development of New Curriculum and Programs

In my time at UWM, I co-designed the new 123 credit Studio Art Degree Plan, offering primary/secondary focus options, while keeping Studio Art as a cohesive core to the degree plan design. This also included designing alongside my fellow capstone faculty members, a new two-semester, Multi-Disciplinary Capstone Courses (ART 501/601) which necessitated developing course content, projects, objectives and goals. I built upon professional development strategies, installation methods and best practices, thesis development strategies, artist writing/research exercises, studio documentation practices, painting and drawing specific readings, as well as studio texts, resources and information for engaging best practices as a professional beyond school. As a member of the Curriculum and Policy Committee, I co-designed the new Illustration Certificate, creating a cost-neutral Illustration Certificate within the existing available Art & Design Department courses alongside other faculty members of the Curriculum Committee, giving valuable input as Area Head of Painting & Drawing. I have worked to integrate the Illustration Certificate into the Painting & Drawing Area curriculum sequences for greater student access.

Non-Credit and Visiting Artist Programs

In 2024, I created a department-wide Friday Figure Drawing Series, opening figure model drawing sessions to all currently enrolled art majors. This required development of a registration program with policies and protocols for Friday Figure Drawing sessions. This has been a highly successful and popular new program. Each semester I bring visiting artists and guest speakers to both the Painting & Drawing courses and the Capstone courses. Visitors include professionals in the field, Milwaukee Artist Resource Network representatives, Gener8tor Artist Grant representatives, Grilled Cheese Artist Grant representatives, visiting alumni and guest critique participants, local gallery owners and art critics, and internationally prominent visiting artists through the Artists Now guest series. Visiting Artists/Curators/Critics include the following: Carrie Moyer (virtual visits, graduate level students); David Antonio Cruz (virtual visits, graduate level students); Vic Roth (in-person visits, undergrad and graduate level students); Rafael Salas (in-person visits, undergrad level students); Justin Favela (in-person visits, undergrad and graduate level students); Hollis Hammonds (in-person visits, undergrad and graduate level students); Phoenix Brown (in-person visits, undergrad level students); Santiago Cucullu (in-person visits, undergrad level students); Breehan James (artist talk at The Alice Wilds Gallery); Leslie Vansen (artist talk with exhibition, Continuum); Raoul Deal (artist talk with exhibition, Continuum); John Sobczak, The Alice Wilds Gallery; Jason Yi, Plum Blossom Initiative; Shane McAdams, The Real Tinsel, Brooklyn Rail contributing writer; Deb Brehmer, Portrait Society Gallery, Hyperallergic contributing writer.

Curricular Guidebooks, Classroom Protocols and Policies

Along with developing and teaching core courses for Painting & Drawing, creating new programs, and non-credit or visiting artist programs, in my time at UWM I have additionally created curricular guidelines for staff teaching in the Painting & Drawing Area in the form of teaching handbooks, as well as a figure model hiring and training protocol and instructor and student guidelines for working with figure models in the classroom.

Student Success

The Painting & Drawing area has seen significant accomplishments by recent BFA recipients. Three recent BFA graduates, Julia Bradfish, Kaden Van De Loo and Madison Winters have each placed in a highly competitive, well-funded internship with the Plum Blossom Initiative, connected to broadly reaching mentorship and exhibition opportunities. Recent Painting & Drawing BFA graduate Nadia Al-Khun is now a gallery owner and community arts leader. In 2025, BFA graduate Lucy Mattern was awarded a Second Place Grilled Cheese Grant of $1500 in support of her thesis exhibition and is enrolled in an international MFA program in Germany. A 2025 BFA graduate, Evan Kuhn, has also been accepted to graduate school. Several Painting & Drawing BFA graduates are active in producing for solo exhibitions and participating in group art exhibitions such as the Emerging Artists Showcase at Var Gallery in Milwaukee, 30 x 30, Museum of Wisconsin Art Biennial competition, and the Trout Museum of Art TMA Contemporary exhibition: all significant exhibitions for artists in the state of Wisconsin.

Recent MFA Graduates I have worked with who are now teaching in their field at the university level include Joel Butler, Barbara Miner, Lilly Dyer, Tanner MacArthur, Celeste Contreras, Allison Calteaux, and current MFA candidate Jack Lehtinen. I have worked closely with MFA candidates to offer mentorship with their teaching practices, as well as led new faculty in best practices as Area Head and consider this to be a strength in my own teaching capacities.

Service Summary

My service to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee includes service commitments within my home department (Department of Art & Design), within my School (Peck School of the Arts) and to programs outside PSOA (primarily the College of Arts & Architecture), as well as a selection of community groups and other organizations. Like many faculty members in the department of Art & Design, I contribute a high level of service to maintain both my area and the larger department and feel a strong sense of commitment to helping provide stability, and a sense of trust, security, and collegiality among our students, faculty, academic staff and administrative staff. I strive to continually provide advocacy and mentorship.

Departmental Administrative Service

As Co-Chair of Art & Design, regular responsibilities have included coordination of departmental events, co-managing department personnel and student concerns, providing schedule and enrollment management, maintaining a range of the department’s essential functions, representing the department in administrative meetings and to the public, and developing proposals, assessments and internal reviews. During 2024-2025 as Co-Chair, I co-authored the Art & Design FY24-25 Budget Narrative, the AY24-25 Art & Design Program Assessments, and the AY24-25 Art & Design Program Array Review Report. I was the lead faculty in authoring the NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art & Design) Accreditation Self-Study, compiling NASAD Management Portfolio Documents, organizing extensive necessary departmental digital archives and co-organized the site visit in Spring 2025. I have additionally been a member of the Chairs Advisory Committee since Fall 2020, and within the Peck School of Arts, I serve on the PSOA Admin Council, and the College of Arts & Architecture Admin Council. I also attended the university-wide Department Chairs & Associate Deans Sessions throughout Spring 2024-Spring 2025.

Area Head Administrative Service

As Area Head of Painting and Drawing, I supervise and evaluate four academic staff members and all figure models, and I manage ten classroom spaces with varying facility, safety and ventilation needs. I schedule the Painting & Drawing staff each semester, develop course proposals and revisions, manage studio budgets both for student course fees and designated area budgets, and I facilitate tours, manage and organize advising events, scholarship jurying, student work displays, special projects and BA/BFA, MA/MFA and P&D Area exhibitions for Painting & Drawing students, and coordinate, host and facilitate interactions between students visiting artists. I have sought support for my area through several successful Differential Tuition Grants.

Awards Received Toward Painting & Drawing Area Development

$1,518 in support of purchase of tools, digital projectors, and security cables, 2020-2021
$13,987 in support of additional instruction for Drawing 1 & 2 courses, 2020-2021
$2,797 in support of upgrade and repair of water pipes and replacement of MIT 313 sinks, 2020-2021
$2,281 in support of radiator repairs in MIT 306, 312 and 316 classrooms, 2020-2021
$10,000 in support of new Homasote installations in MIT 309, 312, 313, 319 classrooms, 2021-2022
$6,145 in support of new tabourets for MIT 309, 319 classrooms, 2023-2024
$2,455 in support of blackout curtains for MIT 309, 327 classrooms, 2023-2024
$5,000 in support of purchase of flat files for MIT 313, 312 classrooms, 2024-2025

Other Awards

$6,000 procured through Queer Curatorial Fund, 2021-- Funding in support of LGBTQ+ artists within the Artists Now visiting speaker series (Funded Speakers include: Carrie Moyer, David Antonio Cruz, Cobi Moules, Edie Fake, Vic Roth, Justin Favela)

University Service

As the sole faculty member in my area and a Departmental Co-Chair at UWM, I have maintained a high teaching and service load. I have worked with the UWM University Awards & Recognitions Committee, and I have in a departmental administrative capacity participated broadly with university level activity and a range of committees through procedure and administrative necessity. At OSU I served on several university level committees such as the Faculty Council, the Academic Standards & Policies Committee, the OSU Museum Advisory Board, and in many other roles.

Departmental Service

I have served on seven core departmental committees and four departmental search committees while at UWM. I regularly serve on graduate committees, and from 2020-2025 I have been a Committee Chair for four MA/MFA Thesis Committees and served as a member on six MA/MFA Thesis Committees while at UWM. I have served on eighteen Graduate Review Committees. I have provided Independent Studies (1-4 credits) with fourteen graduate students (sometimes for multiple, consecutive semesters) and served as an assigned faculty advisor to six graduate students.

Other Service

I am proud of my work with the Rathsack and Rorabeck Awards for Painting & Drawing, and I have provided a vital connection for students by establishing a Queer Curatorial fund for the Art & Design Department at UWM, which serves to bring diverse voices of visiting artists to the departmental programs. In my larger time as a faculty member since achieving tenure, I am particularly proud of the various special exhibitions, workshops and projects I have been able to bring to students in my role as a faculty member at both UWM and OSU, bridging my research interests to the departments I have served, and the communities I live within and care about.