Susan Sensemann: A Zig Zag Trajectory

Susan Sensemann is best known for her large, bold and heavily patterned paintings and photomontages which have let her explore a diverse range of topics throughout her 45 year career. Sensemann describes her approach to art as "expansive, holistic, multi-focused, and non-hierarchical.” Her list of influencers include feminist artists such as Hannah Hoch, Eva Hesse and Harmony Hammond, as well as Italian Renaissance painters like Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Bellini. These influences become evident in her rich and densely packed work as themes of indeterminacy, transformation, and what she calls "restless becoming,” are apparent. Originally creating paintings that reflected both realism and abstraction, her move to Chicago in 1979 inspired a shift in her work. She soon began creating works that were not only abstract but architecturally influenced as well. These new works were now exploring “the spirit and psychological implications of austere interiors that symbolized the domain of women.”

Her varied and diverse body of work also showcases her broad array of skill and technique. Chicago Art Critic James Yood once described Sensemann as a “one woman group show.” To date she has created 34 distinct bodies of work with as few as twelve and as many as 600 works in a series to track an idea. She has worked in a wide variety of media including watercolor, oil, and egg tempera and creates works of art that are constantly changing. Inspired heavily by Cubism, the use of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes and collage are what helped shape Sensemann’s early body of work. Her later works have begun to shift back to abstraction but evidence of her journey is still apparent in her fantastical landscapes, concentrated patterning and her ability to take a deeper look into her subject matters.

She has had work in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Indianapolis Art Center; Roy Boyd Gallery in Chicago; the Ukrainian Museum and Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago; A.I.R., New York; Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta; Locus Gallery, St. Louis; the Art Institute of Boston. Works have been viewed internationally at Titanik Gallery, Turku, Finland; Gallery Woong, Seoul, S. Korea; The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland; Jilin Province, Changchun, PR China; the Kunstmuseum, Torshazn, Faroe Islands, and ARCO 99, Madrid, Spain among others. Her paintings, drawings, and photographs are held in many private, university, and corporate collections throughout the country including Bank of America, the Illinois State Museum, Purdue University and Southern Illinois University.

Top Image: Detail of Susan Sensemann's, Circling with Everything I’ve Got, 2012, acrylic in on paper, 41 x 28 inches