September 25, 2026 - The Miller Art Museum in downtown Sturgeon Bay presents the paintings of Jean Roberts-Guequierre for the month of October as part of its contemporary invitational series, the 12x12 Project, on view October 1 through 31. The public is invited to an Artist Talk facilitated by Curator Suzanne Rose, with a reception following, on Saturday, October 3, at 4 pm. The event is free and open to the public.
Jean Roberts-Guequierre draws on the visual language of medieval and Renaissance painting, particularly the narrative worlds of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch, to tell stories that feel unmistakably present tense. In her paintings, women stand naked and assume poses with an authority historically afforded to men. Their bodies are at home in their skin, revealing an absence of vanity. By shifting the gender of familiar iconic roles, Roberts-Guequierre does not insert women into history as an artificial correction. She reframes the historically male gaze and places women in positions of agency, living easily alongside their male counterparts.
"The worlds she paints may appear fantastical, but their foundations are deeply grounded in the land that formed her, the art that taught her, and the conviction to trust what she paints. Past and present, flesh and imagination, woman, man, and icon all coexist without apology...Her figures do not ask history for permission to enter," says Rose. "They were there all along, in the heart and imagination of the artist.”
Although her imagery reaches back centuries, Roberts-Guequierre describes herself as "very regional." Her paintings return again and again to Midwestern terrain. Great Lakes shorelines and remembered landscapes mingle with invented plants and creatures, alongside garments, architecture, and details of daily life that seem to belong to another century. "We are still part of that time," she says, "and that time is still part of who we are now."
ABOUT JEAN ROBERTS-GUEQUIERRE
Roberts-Guequierre's connection to historical art began at age five, when she discovered the medieval collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she later interned during college. At Kalamazoo College, after the art program was cut midway through her studies, she taught herself woodcut printmaking and then oil painting from books. Largely self-taught, she found her mentors in the Flemish Primitives and Northern Renaissance masters, adapting their technique of building paintings through transparent glazes over drawn underpaintings. Her work explores themes of midlife rebirth and reimagines women within traditionally male-oriented imagery, all carried with empathy, humor, and wry wit.
ABOUT THE 12X12 PROJECT
The 12 x 12 Project is an invitational exhibition series highlighting contemporary artists working across disciplines throughout Wisconsin and the greater Midwest. Conceived as an intimate platform for focused presentations of new work shaping the evolving regional art landscape, the series reflects the museum's ongoing commitment to contemporary practice while expanding access to the larger art dialogue taking place throughout the Midwest.
The exhibition will be on display in downtown Sturgeon Bay through October 31, 2026.