First-ever “Downtown Art Walk” on Friday in La Crosse, featuring local artists each month

A new monthly event featuring local artists kicks off Friday in downtown La Crosse.

It’s called the “Downtown Art Walk,” where local artists will show off their work at various businesses and galleries, downtown.

The event will take place from 4-7 p.m. and happens the first Friday every month.

Artists and their work can be seen at these locations (click each for more info)

• River City Gallery — featuring Kathie Wheeler — 321 Main Street
• Pump House Regional Art Center — featuring multiple exhibitions — 119 King Street
• by James Galleries — 111 5th Avenue South
• Larson’s General — featuring Ashton Hall — 509 Main Street
• Turtle Stack Brewery — featuring Daniel Ellingson — 125 2nd Street South
• Grounded Coffee — 308 Main Street

This month’s featured artist, Kathie Wheeler, will be at the River City Gallery. She’ll be showing off her figurative collection “Heart Beats,” on display through November.

From news release:
Kathie Wheeler is a representational oil painter, who’s work is inspired by the people and places in her life.

She was born in 1962 and was raised in the Chicago area. As a young child, she was drawn to the spirit of the French Barbazon, the Hudson River School of Artists and the American Impressionists, who took to the fields and woods with their sketchbooks and paints to record the beauty of their surroundings.

As a young woman, Wheeler studied at the American Academy of Art, where she won the prestigious Union Art League Scholarship Competition, then worked as a freelance commercial artist and portrait artist.

Over the years, Wheeler has studied with Romel de la Torre, Michelle Dunaway, Clayton Beck and Brian Stewart. Finding inspiration everywhere, she splits her time between studio and portrait work, and painting plein air.

Wheeler is a lifelong student of painting and she loves to pass on her passion to others. Her paintings hang in collections across the country and around the world.

Wheeler is a signature member of Oil Painters of America, The American Impressionist Society and The American Women Artists, and an associate member of the Portrait Society of America.

She and her husband live on the small farm in southwest Wisconsin, where they raised their two children.

Her paintings reflect the experience of her life in the valley in the way that only someone who has lived and worked the land here can.

“I try to put the feeling or emotion I see in a place or person on the canvas. My hope is that the viewer can take some of that away with them,” she said.