Susan Sensemann (born 1949) 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.Wolf Krantz, Claire and Susan Sensemann. "Word for Word: Claire Wolf Krantz/Susan Sensemann," mouthtomouth, Fall 2003, p. 19–25.Yood, James. "Susan Sensemann," in Spirited Visions by Patty Carroll and James Yood, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991.Rundquist, Leisa A. "Impersonations," in Susan Sensemann: Impersonations, Chicago: Susan Sensemann, 2000.Mauro, Lucia. "Walking the line between beauty and the beast," Pioneer Press, November 19, 1997, B4. She has exhibited her work at venues including the Art Institute of Chicago, A.I.R., The Living Art Museum (Reykjavík), Indianapolis Art Center, Chicago Cultural Center, and Art Institute of Boston, on four continents.Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Mutuality: Itatani/Krantz/Sensemann, Mutuality, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2012. Her work has been widely reviewed and resides in numerous private, university and corporate collections.Vendelin, Carmen. "Susan Sensemann," New Art Examiner, March 1998, p. 52.Artner, Alan. "Sensemann puts the unseen on canvas," Chicago Tribune, Section 7, August 2, 1985, 48. Retrieved September 12, 2018.Fry, Donn. "'Imagery/Abstraction' at Herron," Indianapolis Star, March 1, 1981, Sect. 8, p. 10.Durrell, Jane. "Painting: Not Dead Yet," Cincinnati City Beat, February 22–28, 1996, p. 25.Parr, Debra. "Susan Sensemann: Abstract Paintings," St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 8, 1994. Sensemann is known as a versatile and prolific creator, whose ideas have led her to explore diverse painting materials, media (drawing, photography, collage, performance), subject matter (architectural, botanical, biological and organic forms, self-portraiture), and styles from abstraction to realism.Seaman, Donna. "A Collaborative Art," Chicago Tribune. February 28, 1999. Retrieved September 21, 2018.Segard, Michel. "The Other Tradition grows up: Chicago Abstractionists rise above a bitter legacy," New Art Examiner, March 1984, p. 8–9.Finocchio, Dominic. "Susan Sensemann," Art St. Louis, Winter/Spring 1995, p. 15.Howard, Jane. "Bold Strokes: Susan Sensemann, Chicago," (A woman for Lear's), Lear's Magazine, January 1993. Critics note her work's densely packed compositions, shallow fields of oscillating space, complex tactile surfaces, and sensuous color and linearity.Yood, James. "Susan Sensemann," New Art Examiner, May 1985, p. 77.Fulton, Jean. "Susan Sensemann," New Art Examiner, September 1987, p. 43. James Yood wrote that Sensemann's abstract paintings were "fraught with meaning, charged with value, and seething with import" in their spiritual seeking. Art historian Leisa Rundquist described her photomontage self-portraits as "strangely sensual, yet disturbing" images drawn from "the depths of the unconscious."

In addition to her art career, Sensemann was an art professor and administrator for over three decades, most notably at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the grassroots women's cooperative Artemisia Gallery. She has also been a frequent curator and lecturer, and in recent years, begun writing fiction and teaching courses in mindfulness meditation.Chicago Quarterly Review. "CQR #22 is here," Chicago Quarterly Review, August 12, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2018.Chicago Quarterly Review. "Announcing the release of CQR #26," Chicago Quarterly Review, February 7, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2018. Sensemann lives and works in Easthampton, Massachusetts.Easthampton City Arts. "Artwalk Susan Sensemann," Events, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2023.

Life and career Sensemann was born in Glen Cove, New York in 1949. Her early interest in art was sparked by trips with her mother to New York City art museums and a supportive art teacher who introduced her to Cubism in sixth grade. She studied printmaking at Syracuse University (BFA, 1971), but gravitated to painting after spending junior year at the Tyler School of Art, Rome. She enrolled in the graduate program at Tyler at Temple University (MFA, painting, 1973), studying with painter Richard Callner, whose mythological paintings and glazing techniques influenced her early work.

In 1973, Sensemann took a teaching position at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. While there, she met her future husband, sculptor Barry Hehemann. They married in 1979 and moved into a live/work loft in Chicago's industrial Bucktown neighborhood (they divorced in 2004). In 1981, Sensemann joined the faculty at the School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where she would remain until 2010. After she and Hehemann had two children, Lucas (b. 1981) and Marah (b. 1985). Sensemann continued to show internationally and throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Roy Boyd, Artemisia (both Chicago), Fay Gold (Atlanta) and Locus (St. Louis) galleries and the Evanston Art Center, among many. She also served as co-president and board member of Artemisia Gallery (1994–2001), where she co-created international artist exchange and mentoring programs, curated shows, and exhibited and lectured internationally on women's issues in art.Nordhaus-Bike, Anne M. "The state of Chicago's galleries," Gazette Chicago, 1997.

Work and reception

Sensemann describes her approach to art as "expansive, holistic, multi-focused, and non-hierarchical," and cites the influence of feminist artists such as Hannah Höch, Eva Hesse and Harmony Hammond, as well as Italian Renaissance painters like Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Bellini.Phillips, Katie. "Susan Sensemann at Roy Boyd," Images & Issues, July/August 1984, p. 48. These influences manifest in her work's emphasis on visual and tactile sensuality and themes of indeterminacy, transformation, and what she calls "restless becoming."

Architectural Abstraction In the 1970s, Sensemann focused on small egg-tempera and oil paintings of feminist archetypes such as Salome and Magdalene and "fantastic landscapes"Susan Sensemann website. Macondo #8, "Macondo Series," Paintings, ca. 1978. Retrieved September 17, 2018. of dense, brightly colored botanical imagery that flirted with both realism and abstraction. Her move to Chicago in 1979 inspired a shift to abstract, architectonic work that nonetheless suggested actual spaces. Often titled after mythological goddesses, the new paintings explored the spirit and psychological implications of austere interiors that symbolized the domain of women.Artner, Alan. "Artist's fresh look revitalizes familiar scenes," Chicago Tribune, Section 5, June 8, 1987, 9. Retrieved September 12, 2018. 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.Cassidy, Victor, "Visions of Eight," Chicago Reader. April 5, 1985, p. 36. She initially based the works on architectural forms she photographed on trips to Italy ("Tusculana" series)Susan Sensemann website. Tusculana series, Paintings, 1980–1. Retrieved September 17, 2018. 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 (1983–4).Susan Sensemann website. Annunciation series, Paintings, 1983–4. Retrieved September 17, 2018.Schleifer, Kristen Brooke. "Susan Sensemann," New Art Examiner, June 1992, p. 50–1.

Painted in reds, cranberries, tangerines and aquas, works such as Eguchi (1983) employed geometric organizations of architectural planes, light and shadow that created ambiguous space, yet anchored complex, scoured impasto surfaces described as "painstakingly textured, almost sculptural relief."McCracken, David. "Gallery Scene," Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1992, p. 75. Critic James Yood suggested Sensemann's "churning brushwork, intense colors, stippled surfaces, and abstract symbology" signified a pursuit of higher knowledge through the methods of modern art. Sensemann moved toward sparer geometric forms in later series such as "Shekina" (1989–90), whose title derives from a Hebrew word associated with feminine divine attributes.Degener, Patricia. "Abstract Paintings Deal With Abstract Subject," St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 14, 1988. Alan Artner described them as the culmination of a "process of reduction that long has signaled an artistic quest for spiritual purity."Artner, Alan. "Susan Sensemann," Chicago Tribune, Section 5, February 2, 1989, 11.

"Gulf War" works The looming U.S. Gulf War focused Sensemann in a more discordant, political direction in her "State" series (1990), which used geometric shapes to reference gun sights and targets, and thick paint application to create flux through shifts of light and vantage point.Uphoff, Lynn. "Museum show features Illinois artists," Journal Star Peoria, January 9, 1992.Moehl, Karl. "Dan Nardi, Susan Sensemann, Barry Tinsley," New Art Examiner, May 1992, p. 36. In the "Gulf War" series (1991),Susan Sensemann website. "Gulf War" series, Paintings, 2000–1. Retrieved September 17, 2018. she translated masterworks of conflict and violence by Caravaggio, Delacroix, Gericault and Rembrandt into charged, jostling compositions of unrestrained abstract color, light and texture. Within these darker, chaotic works she placed unexpected "intrusions," such as the word "raft" or outlined votive candles, signaling the possibility of hope or resolution. Critic Kristin Schleifer described these expressionist paintings as a logical progression in Sensemann's work that evoked the forces of nature with a greater vitality than ever before.

Collage work

In 1993, Sensemann made an overt break with the strife of the "Gulf War" works and abstraction. She began creating decorative, collaged oil paintings on upholstery fabric that recalled the overflowing compositions and patterns of her fantastic landscapes.Susan Sensemann website.Fabric series, Paintings, ca. 1993. Retrieved September 17, 2018. The paintings also indicated a shift to the more direct critical language of feminist collage. In a subsequent series of 600 collages,Susan Sensemann website. "Myths and Methods," Collages. Retrieved September 17, 2018. she embraced strategies of juxtaposition, fragmentation and rupture, reflecting the alternative influence of Hannah Höch, Meret Oppenheim, Martha Rosler and writer Susan Griffin. In works such as Objectivity as Means of Terminating Panics (1995), 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. Probing them with a politically incorrect sensibility, she compiled taxonomies of highly gendered images that offered fresh readings and satiric, sometimes disturbing commentary on roleplay, stereotypes, misinformation and "masculine" art.McCracken, David. "3 Artists Take Collage on a Joyride of Perspectives," Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1993.Mount Vernon Democrat. "New Harmony Gallery to feature collages from Chicago artist," Mount Vernon Democrat, August 24, 1994, p. 5.

Photomontages