Press Releases
Painter Sean Griskenas Shows 'Off the Wall: Paint as Object' at SXU Gallery
CHICAGO (Feb. 2, 2004) - The SXU Gallery will host "Off the Wall: Painting as Object," a show by artist Sean Rausa-Griskenas, whose multidimensional paintings invite the viewer to "tour" each of her works - works that "afford the viewer the opportunity to see the inside and outside of a painting, in addition to everything in between."
The show runs Feb. 11 to March 5, at the gallery, located in the Warde Academic Center on Saint Xavier University's Chicago Campus, 3700 W. 103 rd St. The artist's lecture is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, with a reception to be held 5:30 to 7 p.m.
An executive vice-president in scientific/medical publishing, Rausa-Griskenas balances her career with her pursuit of what she termed "my experimental innovations."
Using large-scale canvas and large-scale painted voiles (up to 10-by-30 feet), Rausa-Griskenas creates multidimensional pieces that allow the viewer to walk in, around and through the painting. The basic technique, she explained, examines the medium of paint by creating both the illusion of overlapping color and form, cultivated by brush painting acrylic washes on raw canvas. The actual overlapping forms and colors are created with layers of painted voiles hung in front of one another and then placed in front of prepared painted canvas. The voiles act as scrims, and may appear transparent, translucent or opaque with moirés throughout.
Some of Rausa-Griskenas' works, as will be shown at SXU Gallery, are walk-through pieces made by using painted voile and canvas to construct large-scale environments: a garden, a screen or a room. In these works, she said, Rausa-Griskenas cuts shapes into and out of the voile, cuts canvas and assembles collages from canvas and voile, giving way to abstract but loosely referential imagery.
Rausa-Griskenas received a B.A. in Medieval History and a B.A. in Plastic and Graphic Arts from the University of Illinois-Chicago, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 1975. She also earned an M.A. in painting and an MFA in painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1977.