Fine Art senior selected for Wisconsin Artists Biennial 2026

Marta Tereziya ’26, a Fine Art + New Studio Practice senior at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), is one of 50 Wisconsin artists selected for the 2026 Wisconsin Artists Biennial. The Wisconsin Artists Biennial is co-sponsored and organized by Wisconsin Visual Artists and the Museum of Wisconsin Art.

Tereziya’s selected artwork, As I Watched Her Fall, is a cherry wood sculpture. “As I was working on this project, the wood became a living entity and I started to think how much we overuse wood without a thought,” explains Tereziya. “As I Watched Her Fall is made out of a cherry tree, by displaying her grain – I ask her for nothing else, but to just exist in her beauty.”

Marta Tereziya, “As I Watched Her Fall,” 2025, detail.

As part of the application process, Tereziya submitted the following project statement:
Through the process of woodworking, I’ve realized that wood speaks for many elements of our existence. We breathe and live through the tree’s magical ability to absorb our exhalations. It filters our water, drinks the fallen rain. We build with it, create with it—and even a tree standing alone is a shelter of its own.

The tree’s flowing grain is as ethereal as its ability to nurture every living creature on this earth. As I carefully cut a cherry wood stock, I continuously cherished the beauty of its natural growth. I don’t know how old she was, or if she was cut down with care—but I thank her. I thank her for the shelter, for the air she gave, for the cherries she fed so graciously, and the water she once filtered.

I won’t let her be burnt – I’ll give her the gift of sharing her hidden beauty—now forever frozen in flow.

As a senior, Tereziya was pleasantly surprised to be recognized in this large-scale and competitive exhibition. “This recognition has boosted my confidence as an artist and reaffirmed that my dreams are possible,” she says. Tereziya was also awarded a 2025 Tidal Shift award for her work Global Warning.

“This project was fueling me with passion as I was creating it but in the end I did not think much of it, it hung in my home for the summer, resting – just like I intended it to,” she continues. “I had an urge to let it come into existence and now it has led me here. I learned that you never know where your art will lead you tomorrow, continue creating if you have a fuel inside that is telling you ‘this must exist.’ Artists are creators, we must never forget our superpower.”

View Tereziya’s work in the 2026 Wisconsin Artists Biennial at the Museum of Wisconsin Art February 7 – April 19, 2026. Keep up with Tereziya on Instagram and learn more about MIAD’s Fine Art + New Studio Practice major!