As an avid hiker, Brianna Joy Seipel believes in the power of wild spaces to heal, inspire and transform our lives.
Inspired by backpacking trips with her husband, Joel, Brianna Seipel’s vibrant oil paintings reveal the expansive beauty of state and national parks, forests, coastlines, and wilderness areas. Her work invites us to consider landscapes as “places of refuge” and time outdoors as restorative care for the spirit, mind, and body.
Midwest Minis: Every year Seipel creates a new series of "Midwest Mini" paintings. These oil-on-paper pieces are matted to fit standard frames and are inspired by scenes of the Midwest - especially woodlands, prairies, rivers, and the Great Lakes.
Oil Palette Abstracts: While primarily a landscape painter, Seipel embraces the “abstract paintings” that organically develop on her palette throughout the painting process. Every year she collects and saves the canvases she uses as a palette and selects 15-30 to frame as abstract pieces of art. These pieces display beautifully in groupings and create vibrant pairings juxtaposed with the landscape paintings they originate from.
Seipel is also the founder of Lives in Landscape™ - a storytelling project that combines her passions for painting, writing, and building community through compassionate listening. Human-interest at it’s core, Lives in Landscape is designed to honor the stories of remarkable human beings through the landscapes that inspire them.
Seipel’s studio is currently located in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley, on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
EXHIBITIONS
November 2024 - Cathedrals (Woodland Hill Senior Living, Hudson, WI)
March 2024 - Coastlines (Westfields Hospital and Clinic, New Richmond, WI)
2023 - Ruby Red Group Show (Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI)
2022 - Annual Member’s Show (Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI)
2022 - WONDER - National Parks & Wilderness Areas (Urban Ecology Center, Milwaukee, WI)
2021 - Rise and Thrive: A Lives in Landscape Traveling Exhibition (Northwestern Mutual Art Gallery - Cardinal Stritch University; Chase Tower - Milwaukee; The Arts Mill - Grafton; Knowlton Law Group - Wauwatosa)
2020 - Rise and Thrive II: A Lives in Landscape Virtual Exhibition (Knowlton Law Group, Wauwatosa, WI)
2020 - SWAN Day Milwaukee (Bloom: Center for Art and Integrated Therapies, Milwaukee, WI)
2019 - SWAN Day Milwaukee (Urban Ecology Center, Milwaukee, WI)
2019 - Rise and Thrive: A Lives in Landscape Exhibition (Knowlton Law Group, Wauwatosa, WI)
Press
“Meet local artists, Brianna Joy Seipel and Hannah Ribbens,” Urban Ecology Center, March 1, 2022.
“Stories of Healing, Resilience, and Hope,” Mudita Magazine, Vol 1, Issue 2. Spring 2021.
Talis Shelbourne, “Lotus Legal Clinic uses art and prose to celebrate the strength of sexual assault survivors,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 19, 2021.
“Rise and Thrive: Five Lessons of Storytelling and Resilience in Milwaukee,” Milwaukee Independent, January 22, 2021.
“There’s More Than Just Surviving': How Survivors Of Trauma Are Using Art To Become Thrivers,” by Becca Schimmel & Jack Hurbanis, WUWM 89.7 Milwaukee’s NPR, November 13, 2020.
“Rise and Thrive: Brianna Joy Seipel creates Landscapes of Witness at the Crossroads of Art and Allyship,” Milwaukee Independent, January 8, 2020.