Ploch Art Gallery: Call for Artists
Call For Artists for the 2026-2027 season is open now through October 29, 2025. Individual artist, two-person/collaborative group, and curated exhibitions proposals are welcome. All artists must reside in WI, be a native of WI, or be a graduate of a WI college-or university-level post-secondary program. All submitted artwork must be family friendly.
Our Jurors for the 2026-2027 season
Max Yela
Max Yela is an educator, writer, mentor, art maker, and librarian who has been Head of Special Collections at UW-Milwaukee Libraries since 1994 and has been a special collections librarian for 40 years. He is an adjunct instructor in the UWM School of Information Studies, and he taught book arts concepts and practice in the UWM Department of Art & Design from 2004 to 2015, where he remains on graduate faculty. His main research interests are in media theory and the effects of media on human cognition. His research includes art mediation, the history of the book as a media presence in human cultures, and especially the book as an art medium. Max offers many workshops, lectures, and presentations, and has juried and curated innumerable exhibitions. He currently serves on the board of Anchor Press, Paper, & Print (AP3). He has been active in the Wisconsin arts community for over 30 years and was honored for his contributions with a 2017 Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Award.
Rafael Francisco Salas
Rafael Francisco Salas is a Wisconsin based artist. He combines landscape, the legacy of portraiture, architecture, and country music into artwork evoking a singular, rural poetry. He is represented by Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Salas has also worked as an arts writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newcity Art Chicago, The Isthmus Magazine and Urban Milwaukee.
In 2022, Governor Tony Evers appointed Rafael Francisco Salas to the Wisconsin Arts Board, the state agency responsible for the support and development of the arts throughout Wisconsin. He also serves on the Executive Board of the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
Salas is a Professor of Art at Ripon College in Ripon, WI.
LESLIE VANSEN
Painter, Leslie Vansen, is a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Emerita who taught a full range of painting and drawing courses, seminars, and a large lecture class introducing contemporary art practices and evolving critical concerns to both undergraduate and graduate students from 1978-2020. Her paintings are made using acrylic paint on canvas or paper. Their images embody cumulative sensations and memory of nature in an urban environment. Vansen has exhibited widely throughout her career. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections both regionally and nationally and was represented in Milwaukee by The Alice Wilds until its recent closure.