“Hello Milwaukee: Almost True Tales” — New Paintings by Brian Keith Stephen

Milwaukee debut for internationally exhibited artist includes a black-light, immersive Parlor installation exclusively at JK Art House.
About this Event

Milwaukee debut for internationally exhibited artist includes a black-light, immersive Parlor installation previously shown at the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts — on view exclusively at JK Art House.

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — JK Art House, the contemporary fine art gallery in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward, announces Hello Milwaukee: Almost True Tales, a new exhibition of paintings by Brian Keith Stephens, on view September 2 through October 11, 2026, with a public opening reception on Thursday, September 3, from 6 to 8 p.m. Private appointments are available in the weeks leading up to the opening. Come and meet Brian at the opening.

Stephens’ paintings blur the boundaries between folklore and fine art. His signature technique, known as scumbling, layers surfaces that are scratched, abraded, and smeared to create translucency and contoured depth — each canvas revealing itself as a portal into worlds both familiar and strange. His artistic sensibility traces to a childhood encounter with a Jackalope lamp, a creature at once charming and sinister, that instilled in him a lasting fascination with things not quite as straightforward as they first appear.

Stephens trained at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and holds an MFA from the City College of New York. He has exhibited in more than 100 exhibitions internationally since 1996, with work shown from New York City to San Francisco and across Europe in Italy, France, Poland, and Denmark. He currently divides his time between Old Lyme, Connecticut; Brooklyn, New York; and Łódź, Poland.

An Exclusive Immersive Experience: Butterfly Disco

Alongside the main exhibition, JK Art House will present Butterfly Disco, an immersive installation by Stephens in the gallery’s Parlor space. Featuring black lights and artwork rendered on mylar, the installation was originally exhibited at the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts and will be available to view exclusively at JK Art House. The experience offers visitors a playful, otherworldly counterpoint to the paintings on view in the main gallery.

“We are so pleased to welcome Brian Keith Stephens to Milwaukee. His work invites viewers into a space of rediscovery and contemplation, and Butterfly Disco gives our community something they truly cannot see anywhere else,” said Julia Taylor, Gallery Director and Co-Owner of JK Art House.