Exhibition at the Frederick Layton Gallery, Gallery at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design

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Exhibition Curators: Katherine Gressel & Maria Novotny

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EXHIBITION DATES: August 17, 2026 – November 21, 2026

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SUMMARY:

This group exhibition invites local Wisconsin artists to respond to the challenges Wisconsinites face when trying to build their family after an infertility diagnosis or recurrent reproductive loss. In particular, the exhibit seeks to highlight artist mediums that serve as a poignant form of expressing the emotional, social, and logistical layers of difficulty with family building. 

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Currently, over 172,000 people struggle with infertility in Wisconsin. Its impact reaches beyond those numbers, touching family and friends who try to offer support and solace to those waiting to start a new fertility treatment and hoping this cycle works. It is a grueling diagnosis, not always visible to neighbors and coworkers who may naively ask, “so when are you going to finally have kids?”  

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In a State of IF explores art’s role in storytelling, healing, community building and advocacy around the deeply personal and increasingly political topic of infertility. “Pregnancy and motherhood have long been a part of the global art history tradition, from Pre-Columbian-era sculptures of pregnant women to 20th Century works such as Klimt’s ‘Hope, II.’ But depictions of pregnancies that never happened or were cut short, such as Frida Kahlo’s painting of her miscarriage in ‘Henry Ford Hospital 1932,’ are few and far between,” explains journalist Gianne Brownell. This exhibit responds to this absence, highlighting art’s ability to convey the embodied grief, joy, uncertainty, and liminality that accompanies infertility. In particular, we seek artwork that pushes against overly authoritative definitions of fertility, parenthood, personhood or family in favor of work that expresses the “state of IF” that infertility patients often face. 

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As other states across the country have begun to introduce, advance, and pass powerful legislation that would ensure insurance coverage of infertility treatment and fertility preservation, Wisconsin remains a state without an insurance mandate ensuring access to fertility services. We hope to secure artworks from local Wisconsin artists who self-identify with infertility and/or recurrent reproductive loss for an exhibit that narrates the everyday realities of trying to build a family in this state. This exhibition also responds to recent legal and legislative battles to expand and protect IVF and reproductive healthcare throughout the United States and ensure truly equal access for all families and communities that rely on assisted reproductive technology.

 

To that end, we welcome works that push against traditional assumptions of family building and thus highlight intersectional identities, including but not limited to: surrogacy, LGBTQ+ experiences, infant loss, single-parenting by choice and challenges accessing fertility care due to a rural residence. 

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ABOUT THE CURATORS:

Both curators have personal experience with infertility as well as a wide range of experience delivering educational programs around the topic of reproductive loss and art as advocacy. 

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Maria Novotny (Associate Professor at UW-Milwaukee) serves as the co-director of The ART of Infertility, an arts-based storytelling project. Via that work, Novotny has curated nearly 20 exhibitions across the U.S. In 2023, she co-edited the anthology Infertilities, A Curation which highlights the varied perspectives of individuals who have lived with infertility and includes perspectives from women, men, and nonbinary and transgender individuals, as well as heterosexual couples, single parents by choice, and lesbian and queer-identified couples. She is a co-founder of the C21 Reproductive Justice Collaborative at UWM, which brings together a range of community activists to address the various injustices faced by folx living in Milwaukee. She also is a peer-led infertility support group leader for the state of WI and a member of the Building Families Alliance of WI. These relationships position her to bring in a variety of community stakeholders to this exhibition.

Katherine Gressel is a New York City-based independent curator focused on site specific and participatory art in nontraditional spaces. She founded and runs the contemporary art program at the Old Stone House & Washington Park, where she oversees artists and guest curators realizing ambitious solo projects and thematic group shows responding to the history of this historic house and park.  Katherine has also curated and produced artist projects for Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NARS Foundation, Smack Mellon, Arts Gowanus, FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society.  Her work has been recognized by the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Time Out NY, and CBS News. Katherine has written and presented on art and social impact for Dickinson College, Americans for the Arts and Public Art Dialogue, among others. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia.​

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Visit to www.artofinfertiltiy.org see past exhibition images.

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You are welcome to contact either curators with specific questions. 

Maria Novotny: maria@artofinfertility.org 

Katherine Gressel: katherinegressel@gmail.com