August 21, 2026 – The Miller Art Museum is pleased to announce Lauren Semivan as the September featured artist in its ongoing 12 x 12 Project, an invitational series spotlighting contemporary artists from Wisconsin and the greater Midwest. On view September 1 through 30, the exhibition features a selection of photographs from Semivan's False Twilight series.
Working with an early twentieth-century 8x10 large-format view camera, Semivan constructs temporary studio environments where drawing, painting, and found objects converge. These environments exist only long enough to be photographed before they are dismantled, transformed, or reincorporated into subsequent work—resulting in photographs that construct spaces where abstraction and representation coexist, guided as much by time and intuition as by intention. False Twilight takes its name from an astronomical phenomenon: the fleeting interval before dawn when the atmosphere catches light before the sun itself appears, illumination whose source remains unseen. Within Semivan's carefully constructed environments, that same threshold unfolds—photographs that do not seek to be solved, but inhabited, suspending not disbelief or reality, but certainty itself.
While rooted in traditional analog photography, Semivan’s process extends seamlessly into a contemporary digital workflow. Each image begins as an 8x 10 sheet-film negative before being scanned, where only minimal post-production adjustments are made. The finished photographs are produced as archival inkjet prints, preserving the extraordinary detail and tonal richness of the original negative while utilizing the precision, scale, and permanence afforded by contemporary digital printing.
The public is invited to celebrate the exhibition's opening with an artist talk and reception, featuring a conversation between Semivan and Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Suzanne Rose on Saturday, September 12 at 4pm.
“In an age conditioned by speed, Lauren’s work asks for the rarity of sustained attention,” says Rose. “The longer we remain with these photographs, the more they unlock our imagination, deepening our awareness of nuanced color and the energetic nature of gesture.”
Lauren Semivan (b. 1981) is an American artist working between her studios in Manitowoc and Appleton, Wisconsin. She holds a BFA in Studio Art from Lawrence University and an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Silver Eye Center for Photography, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Hunterdon Art Museum, and Paris Photo. Her photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, the Wriston Art Galleries at Lawrence University, Cassilhaus, North Carolina, and the Sir Elton John Photography Collection. She is represented by Benrubi Gallery in New York, David Klein Gallery in Detroit, and The Portrait Society Gallery for Contemporary Art in Milwaukee.
Exhibition Details
The exhibition will be on display in Gallery 3 on the Ruth Morton Miller Mezzanine in downtown Sturgeon Bay through September 30, 2026. The museum is located at 107 S. 4th Avenue, Sturgeon Bay, WI, 54235, inside the Door County Library in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. For information, call 920.746.0707 or visit the museum on Instagram at @MillerArtMuseum or Facebook at Miller Art Museum. Above image credit: Lauren Semivan, Plastic Arrangement, 2026, archival pigment print, 40 x 32 in., edition 2/5.