Wit as Witness: Humor and Satire in Contemporary Art
Artwork by Ilaamen Pelshaw
Wit as Witness: Humor and Satire in Contemporary Art
October 10th, 12:00PM - 1:00PM
The Ashton
Millwork Commons
1229 Millwork Ave, Omaha
Can humor do more than elicit a chuckle? Can it expose, interrogate—even heal? Join us for Wit as Witness, Amplify’s next Alternate Currents panel discussion, for a closer look at humor and satire as tools of resistance, critique, and connection.
This lively discussion brings together a group of artists working across disciplines to question dominant ideologies and reveal their absurdities, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies with a wink and a smile:
Caitlin Cass – Artist, cartoonist, and Assistant Professor of Illustration at UNO.
Ilaamen Pelshaw – Multidisciplinary artist and designer.
Ella Weber – Basement-based artist who uses humor, performance, and storytelling in her mutli-faceted practice.
They’ll be joined by moderator Michael Griffin, for a deeper dive into how irony, contradiction, exaggeration, and play function as critical strategies in creative practice with the power to subvert dominant narratives and challenge long-held assumptions.
Free and open to all, please RSVP below to attend.
The Ashton is wheelchair accessible and located in Millwork Commons, a walkable and bikeable district off the number 4 Metro Transit Omaha bus line. If you have any accessibility needs, please reach out to us at least 48 hours in advance of this event at info@amplfiyarts.org.
Free parking can be found north of HELLO Apartments and in the lot west of the Mastercraft building. Metered Parking is available on Millwork Ave, 13th St, 12th St, and Nicholas Street. Be sure to download the City of Omaha’s Park Omaha app or pay at the purple kiosks. Click here for directions.
Alternate Currents programming is presented with support from the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and Metropolitan Community College.
About the Panelists:
Caitlin Cass makes comics, cartoons and art installations about failing systems and irrational hope. Story by story she is building her own canon in a doomed effort to understand the dismal state of the world. For the past 14 years Caitlin has published a bimonthly comic periodical under the moniker The “Great” Moments in Western Civilization Postal Constituent. Her cartoons and comics have appeared in The New Yorker, The Lily and The Nib. Caitlin was a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction and a 2024 NAC Fellow in Literary Arts. Her 2020 solo exhibition Women’s Work was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Caitlin’s first full length graphic history Suffrage Song (Fantagraphics, 2024) won the 2025 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. Caitlin lives and works in Omaha, NE where she is Assistant Professor of Studio Art, Illustration and Time-Based Media at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Ilaamen Pelshaw is a Latina artist, born and raised in Guatemala, with background in commercial graphic design and emphasis in illustration, her work is mainly figurative and graphic. Ilaamen is a storyteller who explores elements of everyday life in a colorful and cheerful way, often focused on kindness and inclusion. Since 2015 Ilaamen has participated in more than 40 exhibitions in different States and 3 local solo shows and her art can be found in private collections around Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central America.
Ella Weber is a basement-based artist who uses humor, performance, and storytelling within her mutli-faceted practice. Playfully upending the existential fabrics of daily life, Weber transforms her minimum-wage day jobs into her studio. Across the counter and screen, Weber blurs the line between employee and customer, performance and reality, art and life. Weber’s recent solo exhibitions include Western Exhibitions in Chicago, the Plains Art Museum in North Dakota, and Munson in Utica, NY. Group exhibitions include the Everson Museum in Syracuse, Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, IPCNY in New York, among others. Residencies include MASS MoCA, The NARS Foundation, Rogers Art Loft, PrattMWP, Ox-Bow School of Art, The Wassaic Project, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Signal Culture, Jentel, Byrdcliffe Guild and Anderson Ranch. Her debut novel The Deli Diaries was published with Latah Books in 2023. As part of her book tour, Weber continues to share a performative Stand-Up Comedy-Microsoft PowerPoint-TED Talk-Poetry Reading at colleges across the country. Arguably most significantly, Weber accidentally completed a 10-week community college course, entitled “How to Be a Stand-Up Comedian” with her dad. Privacy continues to be an issue. Weber received an MFA from the University of Kansas and BFA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She currently lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska.
About the Moderator:
Michael Griffin's education was in saxophone jazz studies, sociology, and culminated with a Masters of Health Policy from Emory University. Along the way, he realized humor's role in fostering a culture of collaborative education with different types of people, which led him to direct, write, and star in a one-hour comedy special entitled 27 Club. At the same time, he worked in UNMC's public health department as the health programs manager for North Omaha and began a broadcasting career as a host on Riverside Chats, a local show airing Mondays at 12 PM on KIOS 91.5, where he is currently the executive producer. He is passionate about sharing stories of community members often overlooked in media, as well as society at large, and is deeply inspired by his mom, grandmother, and niece.