Paige Bauske is a Milwaukee-based artist and educator.
Paige explores human impact on the environment through painting and printmaking. In recent years, she has been exploring various techniques, including woodcuts and oil painting, to depict the human impact through realistic depictions. Paige has been teaching in Public Education for 7 years as a High School art educator. She is dedicated to empowering future leaders through their creative expression and breaking through inequalities.
Artist Bio
She was born and raised in Northern Illinois, but moved to Milwaukee in 2016 to pursue art education. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2019 with a Bachelor’s of Art Education. In 2020, Paige’s work was featured in the UWM Art Educator Exhibition titled The Ties that Bind. She has also been involved in social justice work through her art and education work, such as creating her Wisconsin United poster for Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, her teacher union, which was used in a state rally in 2023. Paige has painted many murals with students and in the community. She is also the advisor for Y.E.S. (Youth Empowered in the Struggle), which she has organized art builds and teaches students how to organize. Her work was also chosen for the Planned Parenthood Forward Art Initiative, where her work is featured in the Water Street Planned Parenthood in Milwaukee. In 2024, Paige was featured in her first solo show, Whereabouts, at Goodkind for Bayview Gallery Night in Milwaukee. In 2025, Paige won the Richard Oulahan Youth Empowered in the Struggle Advisor Award for her contributions to organizing and social justice with her students.
Artist Statement
My work explores the human impact on the environment through the exploration of different media with a focus on printmaking and painting. The human impact includes our environment, what we create, and what we leave behind. I want to depict both the positive and negative aspects of how humans impact our Earth. I have primarily explored woodcuts as a medium to represent our environment and place. While traveling the world, I want to document places, buildings, and landscapes that are beautiful and might go unnoticed, and have a story to tell. I chose woodcuts specifically because it is almost coincidental to use a natural material to show what humans made. I have used oil paint to explore what we have created and left behind, such as pollution, global warming, wildfires, and the effects of war. These paintings are meant to be beautiful and realistic; you can’t look away from the actual disaster. For each artwork, I have done extensive research and have learned about new contributions of destruction and why they might occur, which has led to new work and new explorations.
