Artist Biography

Melissa Wagner-Lawler is an artist and Teaching Faculty member in the Printmaking & Book Arts department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in Printmaking and her Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. For over fifteen years, Wagner-Lawler’s work has focused on artist books and exploring the complexities of this format. Her artist books incorporate letterpress and other printmaking techniques, such as screen printing and relief printing. In her work, she investigates and modifies folded and woven book structures, often including intricate enclosures that contain relevant supporting objects.

Exploring perceptions of landscape and place, her work captures moments just before change and destruction. It highlights the idea of quiet unpredictability right before looming chaos. The landscapes, though subtle and layered, challenge our sense of place and security. Elements of tension, information breakdown, and fragile circumstances come together in prints and artists' books. The bound book format enables her to work sequentially and allows viewers to add or change the meaning through the viewing process. She hand-prints, editions, and binds all the book works herself.

She was a 2025-2026 artist in residence with ARTServancy, a local arts organization that partners area artists with land trusts in the Greater Milwaukee area. Through her residency, she created an artist book entitled 16,650 Days, along with a suite of prints inspired by the Biehl Nature Preserve.

Wagner-Lawler’s has created 17 editioned book works which have been widely exhibited and are included in over 40 notable collections, such as the Library of Congress Rare Book Collection, Stanford University, Bainbridge Museum of Art, Yale University, and the Smithsonian American Art & Portraiture Library.