Its position on the western shore of Lake Michigan fueled Milwaukee’s early growth, first as the world’s largest shipper of wheat in the mid 1800s. Soon, other industries—flour-milling, meat-packing, leather-making and brewing—joined in transforming Wisconsin’s agricultural bounty into useful, tradable goods. By the late 1800s, manufacturing was at the core of the city’s identity as it churned out machinery from steam engines to agricultural equipment and auto parts.
Slabs, 2024, oil on panel, 38½ x 60½ in.
It's fitting that an exhibition of Dave Clay’s dark and fiery industrial spaces is being held at Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Grohmann Museum, home to a collection that revolves around the evolution of human work.
“Our exclusive focus is on the art of industry, labor and human achievement,” says museum director James Kieselburg. “Much of our collection depicts the history of technology—the structures and systems of industry—but none in quite the way Clay captures these subjects…[His] industrial paintings are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There is a special, ethereal quality to them, as if they come from the pages of science-fiction.”
Slag Dump, 2023, oil on panel, 10 x 23 in.
Kieselburg points to Clay’s recent works Arc Furnace and Rolling Mills as prime examples. “On first glance, they appear as machines and apparatus not of this earth,” he says. “They seem otherworldly before coming into focus as modern metallurgical marvels.”
In addition to being a painter, often of figurative works that verge on abstraction, Clay works in a variety of media including digital collage, metal and large-scale interactive sculpture. He is also a musician and software engineer. Clay lives in Seattle, but as a Milwaukee native, he is no stranger to the industrial landscape—or science fiction.
“I just love the aesthetic of the steel mill,” Clay says. “It’s such a massive, powerful, noisy thing. There are these immense contrasts of hot and cold temperatures and colors. The gray visual noise of slag and dust contrasts with the pure color of molten steel. Pipes and wires that weave in and out of vast dark recesses. Nothing is quite square in perspective; structures live where they need to. The scale dominates everyday human experience. Yet they remain human constructions built for human purposes. I think they’re quite mesmerizing."
Arc Furnace, 2024, oil on panel, 48 x 48 in.
Clay continues, “These machines and spaces are alien to most of us. Incomprehensibly complex, physically massive, dangerous. They evoke a sense of the unknown. But humans build, operate and maintain these machines. They are the literal foundation of our modern society. All that humanity has accomplished is built upon this alchemy of metal, the extremes of hot and cold, the study of iron and carbon and oxygen. It’s the brutal physicality of these spaces. It’s iron and carbon and oxygen—organic compounds and atomic weights and particle accelerators.”
Dave Clay’s Industrial Atmospheresis on view at Milwaukee’s Grohmann Museum through April 26. It features nearly 25 paintings created during the past several years, some based on actual steel mills around the world, with more recent works depicting imagined spaces where Clay heightens the qualities already inherent in those environments.
Rolling Mills, 2023, oil on panel, 24 x 24 in.
Kieselburg adds, “Our patrons visit for our feature exhibitions and to also view our collection covering over 500 years of industrial subjects and working scenes. When viewed in juxtaposition to our permanent collection, I hope this exhibition fosters an appreciation for the variety of ways in which one can capture scenes of industry, from the very traditional to contemporary works like Dave Clay’s.” —
Dave Clay’s Industrial Atmospheres
Through April 26, 2026
Grohmann Museum
1000 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 277-2300, www.msoe.edu
Powered by Froala Editor
