James May Gallery presents...

TENSION IN THE ORDINARY | WINTER INVITATIONAL : featuring: Cristian Andersson, Melissa Dorn, Karla Lauden, and Elyse-Krista Mische.

This diverse group of regional artists deal with ideas of mortality, obsession, and amnesia, through a myriad of mediums including performance, installation, drawing, fibers, and painting.

Join us in our new space at 219 State Street Algoma- the old post office- for a night of performance, art, conversation, and refreshments. Show runs through the end of April.

More about the artists:

Cristian Andersson is an artist who works out of Matchbook Studio in Appleton, WI. While he primarily creates abstract oil paintings, in 2016 he started branching off into installation and performance pieces that deal with contemporary concerns: the overwhelming nature of our news, navigating interpersonal communication as it becomes more abstracted through social media, and the balance between notions of the self and the greater community. He is also involved in community art events: curating small exhibitions of local artists, teaching classes to middle and high school students, and working with students from UW-Oshkosh in an annual off-campus invitational exhibition.


Melissa Dorn works between painting and sculpture. She draws from common everyday objects, things often overlooked or passed by, as subject matter and infuses them with humor. Dorn is a Milwaukee-based artist, who holds a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. A practicing artist for 20 years, she is represented by Frank Juarez Gallery.

Her work can be found in many corporate collections including Littler Mendelson, Mandel Group, Marcus Corporation’s Saint Kate Arts Hotel, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Northwestern Mutual, West Bend Mutual Insurance Company, and Tax-Air.



Karla Lauden studied printmaking and drawing and has a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and an MFA from the University of Nebraska. Her work explores states of the conscious and subconscious mind. Lauden's most recent work deals directly with surviving a life-threatening disease. Images deal with trauma, mortality, PTSD, and living with a new body.
Previous work is in response to our ever changing, fleeting, and, reassembled life, in parts that become whole. She works primarily with collage and mixed media creating art work that explores piecing together new realities from found materials.

Karla exhibits her work nationwide and has been included in shows at Museum of Wisconsin Art, Charles Allis Art Museum, Columbia College, and residency at the Jentel Foundation for the Arts in Banner, Wyoming. Karla lives in Menasha, WI with her husband and their two cats, Dots and Blui. She works full time as an High School Art Teacher for the Appleton Area School District.



Elyse-Krista Mische is bird aficionado, Certified Nurse Aid, hospice volunteer, and mixed-media artist who contemplates mortality, memory, and time through her drawings, sculpture, and performance pieces. She embraces make-believe and craft processes from her youth to address universal existential issues.

Elyse-Krista grew up in St. Cloud Minnesota and now resides in Appleton WI, where in 2011 she earned a B.A. in studio art from Lawrence University. Elyse-Krista has completed multiple artist residencies including Holden Village (Chelan, WA 2015), Elsewhere Studios (Paonia, CO 2016), The Charles Adams Studio Project (Lubbock, TX 2016), Kids Space (Orgiva, Spain 2017), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN 2017-18), SpringBoard for the Arts (Fergus Falls MN 2019) and Breckenridge Creative Arts (Breckenridge, CO 2019). She has been supported in her creative pursuits by the Chamber of Commerce and Goodwill Industries of Wisconsin. Elyse-Krista is an advocate of the Death Positive Movement, shows her work both nationally and internationally, serves an appointed member of the Appleton Public Art Committee, and creates art programming opportunities for the elderly in her community.