The Bird & The Hand: The Art of Benjamin Pollock & Carey Watters
Grove Gallery in Walker’s Point will present “The Bird & the Hand” on July 17, 2026 from 5-9pm, a show that brings together the work of artists Benjamin Pollock and Carey Watters who share a fascination in the search for meaning in the natural world. Pollock’s drawings combine precise geometric structures with birds, hinting at hidden forces and questioning the arbitrary boundaries between humanity and nature. Watters’ intricate cut-paper works result from years of photographing hands as sites for humans to create meaning through ritual, belief, symbolism, and folklore.
Benjamin Pollock has a formal training in chemical physics plus a fascination with ornithology. His work combines symmetry, straight lines, and perfect circles alongside the delicate form of birds, revealing the invisible framework of forces shaping reality. Of his work, Pollack says, “Here is a continuous picture of reality where all things, living and not, are connected through a framework of forces interacting in delicate order.”
Carey Watters is an artist and professor who creates layered paper installations or “cabinets of curiosities” that blur the boundaries between artifact (human-made) and specimen (nature-made). Influences include Byzantine iconography, religious reliquaries, and vernacular traditions from her travels to southern Italy, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Watters describes the work as “Hands, eyes, and other familiar objects removed from their original context and presented as fragments of larger narratives—evidence of humanity's enduring desire to classify, interpret, and assign meaning to the world around us.”
Opening Reception: Gallery Night & Day!
Friday, July 17th 5-9pm & Saturday, July 18th 12-5 pm
Gallery Open Hours: Open on Saturdays, 12-4pm, through August 15th, 2026.
About the Artists
Carey Watters is a professor of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin. She received her BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and her MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.
Benjamin Pollock is a self-taught artist who earned his master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. He served on the board of directors at Polka!Press, a community printshop in Madison, before relocating to Milwaukee in 2022 and joining Anchor Press, Paper & Print (AP3). He currently serves on the executive committee at House of RAD, a warehouse collective of 70+ artists in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley, which is also the home of AP3.