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The Grilled
Cheese Grant

An annual community-funded emerging artist grant based in Milwaukee, WI

By artists, for artists

Thank you for joining us for the 10th anniversary of GCG!

This year, we were able to raise over $13,000 to support emerging artists.


 




Meet the 
2025 Winners


FIRST PLACE:

Siren Harris


Siren Harris is a metal artist pursuing a BFA in New Studio Practice at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, expected to graduate in 2026. 

Siren creates intricate, emotionally charged works that explore personal identity, transformation and personal meditation. Drawing on a diverse range of life experiences, her art functions as both a form of catharsis and a tool for navigating complex emotional landscapes.

sirensmetal.com



SECOND PLACE:


Lucy Mattern


Lucy Mattern is a Milwaukee-based artist completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her large scale paintings test the limits of gestalt perception while exploring semiotics through subtle color shifts, contrast in paint thickness, and reference of signs. 

She currently serves as a Gallery Assistant at Real Tinsel and is a recipient of the Else Ulbricht Scholarship. In pursuing her interest in perception and language, she hopes to teach English in Prague before advancing with a Masters of Fine Art in Painting at the international Alfred-Düsseldorf MFA program.
lucymattern.com

THIRD PLACE:

yo yo collective



yo yo is an artist collective based in Milwaukee, WI. Their practice is rooted in memory and recollection, preserving fragments of past experiences through performance, sculpture, and installation. 

As first and second-generation immigrants, they are perpetually in motion going to and from, similar to the wooden object attached to a single string that moves back and forth when played. The movements are, at times, tangible, invisible, solitary, communal, and ever-evolving. As they pay homage to their ancestry and to each other, they invite the audience for active engagement and critical conversation within the community.

yoyocollective.cargo.site

FOURTH PLACE:


Madi Weglarz


Madi Weglarz grew up in the small, north-eastern Wisconsin town of Crivitz. She moved to Milwaukee in 2021 to attend the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and is set to graduate spring of 2025 with her BFA. 

She is now a local emerging Milwaukee artist and designer who works primarily in 3D programs and sculpture. They have shown work in group shows at MIAD’s Gallery at the Ave, SomeFools, Hawthorn Contemporary, and a solo show at Ergonomica. She has also tabled at MIAD’s ZineFair twice, selling her printed risograph works.

madiweglarz.cargo.site


FIFTH PLACE:

Max Van Loan


Max Van Loan is an experimental filmmaker and artist. They received their BA in Cinema from Binghamton University (NY) and their MFA from University of Colorado Boulder. 

Their work is diaristic in nature and often takes the form of short analog films and videos and occasionally multimedia installations. They are interested in play and a sense of wonder in the mundane.

maxvanloan.com



2025 Jurors


Phoenix Brown

Phoenix S. Brown is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Milwaukee, WI. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, she earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a minor in art history. Her work explores themes of empowerment, self-healing, and transformation through mystical imagery, symbolic language, and environments influenced by her upbringing on the cusp of the Midwest and Appalachia. Brown is a recipient of the 2024 Wisconsin Emerging Artist Achievement Award and has participated in residencies at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH), Yale Norfolk School of Art (Norfolk, CT), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). 

Her work has been exhibited throughout the Midwest and beyond, including solo exhibitions at the Wright Museum of Art (Beloit, WI) and Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI), as well as group presentations at NADA Miami Art Fair, Other Art Fair (Chicago, IL), and Untitled Art Fair (Miami Beach, FL).

Alec Regan

Alec Regan is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and fabricator based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He earned a BFA in Integrated Studio Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Regan is the co-founder of the collaborative artist project American Fantasy Classics, a volunteer staff member at ACRE Residency, and a recipient of the Mary Nohl Fellowship in the Emerging category. 

Some of his recent exhibitions and projects have been presented at Bahamas Biennale (Detroit, MI), Enclave Lab (London, UK), Basketshop Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), Arturo Bandini (Los Angeles, CA), Usable Space (Milwaukee, WI), and The Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI). 

As a fabricator, Regan has worked with Milwaukee based design-build firm, Current Projects, and had been involved in projects at institutions such as the the Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Elmhurst art museum, Boston Athenaeum, Wrightwood 659, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Whitney Biennial.

Nick Wylie


Nick Wylie is an artist, organizer, and educator based in Chicago who’s been managing director of Public Media Institute since 2018. Before that he served as Associate Director of Southern Exposure, a 45-year-old artist-run nonprofit Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Wylie received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, did post-baccalaureate work in Art History at Northwestern University, and went to University of Illinois at Chicago for his MFA. In 2006 he co-founded Harold Arts, a Chicago-based non-profit arts organization with a residency in Ohio, and was its co-director until early 2010. He then co-founded ACRE (Artists' Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions), a 501(c)3 with residency in rural Wisconsin and an extensive exhibitions program in Chicago. Wylie served as co-director of ACRE until moving to San Francisco and joining its Board of Directors in 2015-2022. He has taught artmaking and arts administration courses at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, and University of St Francis. 

Wylie's art practice, which incorporates video technology, performance, drawing, and queer futurity, has haunted galleries in Chicago and beyond for the past fifteen years. His work recently focuses on Elmer Ellsworth, dandy abolitionist and purported lover of Lincoln, who was first to die in the Civil War after taking down a giant Confederate flag and more recently he’s focusing on around about queer mystery cults, mother goddesses, and the space rocks they lived in.








Thank You to Our 2025 
Community Sponsors



 

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