Caestecker Gallery to Present “Mixed Signals (New Paintings +),” New Work by Derrick Buisch

Exhibition runs September 11 – October 9, 2026, with artist talk and opening reception on September 11

Ripon College’s Caestecker Gallery will present Mixed Signals (New Paintings +), a new exhibition of paintings by Derrick Buisch, on view from September 11 through October 9, 2026. An artist talk will be held in Demmer Theatre on Friday, September 11, 2026, at 6:00 p.m., followed by an opening reception.

Buisch’s work centers on abstract painting drawn from ordinary, everyday visual sources: roadside signs, strip malls, graffiti, tattoos, and product symbols. What began as an interest in ideograms has evolved into a more automatic, abstract painting vocabulary built around three core concerns: drawing, structure, and color. Recurring marks, signs, and gestures (generated through projection, stenciling, and transfer techniques) form a kind of visual chatter that embraces distortion, interruption, and interference on the painted surface.

In Mixed Signals (New Paintings +), Buisch also turns to more straightforward subjects, including imaginary monsters and fantastic buildings. Their blunt, naïve quality acts as a foil for rigorous experimentation with paint chemistry, color, installation, and scale, allowing the artist to continually stress-test and recalibrate the physical properties of his medium.

Color plays a central role throughout the work, evoking materials that range from the synthetic such as plastic, bubblegum, crayons to the natural such old walls, shallow pools of water, flesh. Varied paint applications and differing rates of development, incorporating shifting degrees of pigment and oil, register the passage of time within each canvas. Subtle, precise variations in viscosity, color, and surface tone distinguish one painting from the next, resulting in surfaces that are, in the artist’s words, “luscious and mysterious.”

“We are excited to host such a prominent artistic voice to launch our 2026-27 season of exhibitions in the Caestecker Gallery at Ripon College,” said Professor of Art and Caestecker Gallery Director Rafael Salas.

About the Artist

Derrick Buisch has served as a painting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1997. His work has been exhibited widely in national and regional museum exhibitions, including at the Tory Folliard Gallery, the James Watrous Gallery, the Wisconsin Triennials, and the University Gallery of the Center for Art & Theatre at Georgia Southern University. His site-specific paintings were featured in the 2016 Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and the 2020 Faculty Exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin.

Buisch is the recipient of a 2025 Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts from the UW–Madison Division of the Arts. His past honors include a Skowhegan Residency (1995), a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award (2000), a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2017), and research support from the University of Wisconsin–Madison Graduate School. His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Chazen Museum of Art, the Rockford Museum of Art, and the Madison Children’s Museum.

Exhibition & Event Details

Exhibition Title: Mixed Signals (New Paintings +)
Dates: September 11 – October 9, 2026
Artist Talk: Friday, September 11, 2026, 6:00 p.m., reception to follow
Location: Caestecker Gallery, RIpon College
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. Saturdays & Sundays: 2:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Admission is free and open to the public.