Broaden your perspective. Change our world.

David Lenz

David Lenz, local realist painter, uses his portraits to bring light to people that are often overlooked. His show, titled “People on the Periphery” recently debuted at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. The show included many photo-realistic portraits of people who he feels are forced onto the peripherals of society: farmers, people with cognitive disabilities, and children growing up in the Milwaukee inner city.

His “studio” is a warm and welcoming finished part of his garage where he creates his extremely detailed paintings. 

In 2006, David Lenz won one of 50 spots of over 4,000 works in the Outwin Bucherra Portrait Competition. For the piece submitted, David Lenz painted a portrait of his son, Sam, titled Sam and the Perfect World. The painting pictures a perfect landscape featuring rolling hills in Northern Wisconsin, with, Sam, who was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, standing in front of a fence, separating him from “the perfect world”. This fence is one of the many symbols often used in Lenz’s work.

La Toya Sykes

La Toya Sykes, president and CEO of the nonprofit after-school group, “Our Next Generation”, is a powerful and influential woman in the Milwaukee community. Sykes strives to help her students, or “her babies”, to stay on the path to graduate high school and encourages them to pursue higher education.

Our Next Generation, located on the corner of Lisbon and 35th St., hosts kids from the surrounding neighborhood at the conclusion of their school day. The children play games, receive dinner, and get homework help from tutors at the end of every weekday.

Sykes grew up in the neighborhood surrounding the center, and uses her background to better connect with her students. Sykes describes that she knows the negative messaging that her children are receiving, and does her best to combat it. She reminds her students that they are not the product of their surroundings; they are in the driver’s seat of the their future.

Christopher Gilbert

Christopher Gilbert is a dancer, actor, and life coach. He is a strong supporter of the arts.

Gilbert drums and dances in his Milwaukee-based band, New Age Narcissism. He also has an independent career as a dance teacher and performer. Gilbert instructs his own dance classes and has volunteered to teach classes to students at the First Stage Theater Academy.  He has portrayed Muno and Gooble on the Nick Jr. show, as well as appearing on So You Think You Can Dance and in the film, Prone.

As a teenager, Gilbert struggled to express himself and felt the only way that he could say exactly what he wanted to was through movement and dance. He now strives to give Milwaukee youth the power to express themselves through whatever means they can; be it dance, art, music, writing, or anything else. Gilbert’s goal is to empower youth to be and express themselves without limits.

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