Valerie Mangion

I was raised in the Chicago suburbs. I got my BFA at University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. Then I lived in the city of Chicago for two years. The Chicago Imagists were a major influence early on. From Chicago, I lived in Seattle for eight years, during which time I became an animal rights activist and vegetarian. I did a lot of angry, political paintings about man’s inhumanity to animals. I moved back to the Midwest to attend graduate school at UW-Madison, WI, where I received my MFA in 1993. I met my husband during graduate school. We bought a 56-acre farm in the Driftless region of Southwest Wisconsin. We’ve lived outside of Boaz, WI for almost 30 years, with cats, dogs and, in the past, horses to keep us company. I still mostly paint narrative images about animals. I think of my oil on panel paintings as a mix of surrealism, magic realism and midwest regionalism. I have been in a lot of group, one and two person shows over the years. One of my paintings was made fun of on Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live – a career highlight! Currently I am represented by GOWA, Gallery of Wisconsin Art (now an on-line gallery only). I have a solo exhibit scheduled for August-September 2025 at Rountree Gallery in Platteville, WI.