28 Facts About Susan Sensemann

Susan Sensemann was born on 1949 and is an American artist, educator and arts administrator, best known for her detailed, largely abstract patterned paintings and photomontages reflecting gothic, baroque, spiritual and feminist sensibilities.

Susan Sensemann's work has been widely reviewed and resides in numerous private, university and corporate collections.

Susan Sensemann has been a frequent curator and lecturer, and in recent years, begun writing fiction and teaching courses in mindfulness meditation.

Susan Sensemann studied printmaking at Syracuse University, but gravitated to painting after spending junior year at the Tyler School of Art, Rome.

Susan Sensemann enrolled in the graduate program at Tyler at Temple University, studying with painter Richard Callner, whose mythological paintings and glazing techniques influenced her early work.

In 1973, Susan Sensemann took a teaching position at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In 1981, Susan Sensemann joined the faculty at the School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, where she would remain until 2010.

Susan Sensemann continued to show internationally and throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Roy Boyd, Artemisia, Fay Gold and Locus galleries and the Evanston Art Center, among many.

Susan Sensemann served as co-president and board member of Artemisia Gallery, where she co-created international artist exchange and mentoring programs, curated shows, and exhibited and lectured internationally on women's issues in art.

Susan Sensemann describes her approach to art as "expansive, holistic, multi-focused, and non-hierarchical," and cites the influence of feminist artists such as Hannah Hoch, Eva Hesse and Harmony Hammond, as well as Italian Renaissance painters like Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Bellini.

Susan Sensemann's move to Chicago in 1979 inspired a shift to abstract, architectonic work that nonetheless suggested actual spaces.

Susan Sensemann enlivened the spaces with ghost-like whorls or spirals that hinted at kinetic energy, "spiritual emanations" or traces from unseen or absent actors and encounters.

Susan Sensemann initially based the works on architectural forms she photographed on trips to Italy or Japanese art and kabuki forms, before turning to structures from pre-Renaissance paintings by Duccio, Fra Angelico, Giotto and Piero della Francesca in the "Annunciation" works.

Susan Sensemann moved toward sparer geometric forms in later series such as "Shekina", whose title derives from a Hebrew word associated with feminine divine attributes.

In 1993, Susan Sensemann made an overt break with the strife of the "Gulf War" works and abstraction.

Susan Sensemann began creating decorative, collaged oil paintings on upholstery fabric that recalled the overflowing compositions and patterns of her fantastic landscapes.

In works such as Objectivity as Means of Terminating Panics, Susan Sensemann made startling use of cut-up "Americana" images from 19th-century bibles, mid-20th-century childbirth, health and parenting manuals, encyclopedias, art reproductions and National Geographic images.

Susan Sensemann reworked these strategies in new works that combined Gothic sensibilities, feminist self-portraiture, and themes of voyeurism, vulnerability and exhibitionism influenced by the work of Sophie Calle and Ana Mendieta.

Susan Sensemann returned to more abstract art in the 2000s, with several bodies of large-scale, baroque works in which accumulations of small marks, dots, dashes or blips collide and overlap to create dizzying fields of complex patterns.

Susan Sensemann began teaching in 1973 at the school of art and design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Susan Sensemann earned tenure at age 30, leaving as an associate professor in 1981 for the school of art and design, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Susan Sensemann served in several capacities at the school, including appointments as director of graduate studies, acting director, and director of undergraduate studies.

Susan Sensemann has been an active curator, at venues including the Evanston Art Center, Gallery 400, and Artemisia Gallery.

Susan Sensemann has written catalogue essays to accompany her curated exhibitions, as well as pieces on artists such as Hannah Hoch, Miyoko Ito, and Claire Wolf Krantz, for publications such as Design Issues and Art Papers.

Susan Sensemann has written poetry and fiction, and given performances of her work at galleries and clubs.

Susan Sensemann's "Consorting with Nathaniel Hawthorne" series paired photomontages of her face and silk funerary arrangements, such as Burst.

Susan Sensemann's works are held in private, university and corporate collections, including the Illinois State Museum, Purdue University, Northeast Normal University, University of Delaware, Southern Illinois University, Millikin University, Ripon College and Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, among many.

Susan Sensemann has been awarded grants from MUCIA, British Arts Council, Illinois Arts Council and Chicago Artists International for projects in South Korea, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Prague and Finland, respectively.