Roxanne Sexauer’s “Taproot” exhibition to showcase woodcut prints

On Sun., Jan. 10, Sexauer will display her work in a show titled “Taproot” at La Sierra University’s Brandstater Gallery. The exhibit will open with an artist’s reception from 6-8 p.m. on Jan. 10. It will run through Feb. 11 and consist of 30-35 woodcut prints. Her works, dominated by relief printmaking, will incorporate various forms of lithography, screen print, monotype, stencil and etching.

Sexauer wants viewers of her exhibit to derive a better understanding of her craft, and realize the vitality of fine art in a world dominated by digital entertainment. “I’m hoping that the viewer can provide finish to the work by bringing their own message to bear on it,” she said. “The viewer can hopefully take away a better understanding of what woodcuts are, and how a print can be a multiple original.”

Sexauer is a professor of art at California State University, Long Beach and has been a member of its School of Art faculty since 1989. She currently teaches relief, etching, advanced printmaking and the survey of printmaking, as well as the history of prints and drawings. She has also exhibited extensively in national and international shows. This past summer, she was an artist-in-residence at the Black Church Printmaking Studio in Dublin, Ireland, and in 2014 her works were shown in a solo exhibition, “Sight Readings,” at the Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery in Santa Monica. Her prints are included in collections and many other galleries and museums in various states.

Sexauer holds bachelor and master’s degrees in fine arts and printmaking from the University of Iowa and the State University of New York, Purchase, respectively. “I can distinctly recall the years I lived in Iowa, cutting my woodblocks while wearing fingerless gloves in a shared Quonset hut studio in what was then the rural farming community of Coralville,” says Sexauer. “In the winter, the water in the studio would completely freeze over. There was a large American French Tool Press and a tiny ceiling mounted heater, which would only vaguely warm the top of one’s head. What I recall the most about working in that raw space was the bitter cold that was trapped inside of my bones, which became an element in my prints, perhaps even to this day.”

She credits her pursuit of an artistic career to her high school art teacher, Herbert Goldstein. “Most of us in the arts owe much to certain extraordinary educators, who early on see the potential in a rough hewn stone, and accordingly encourage, chip away and polish,” she said.

Sexauer was born in the Bronx, New York and lived in several states during her childhood. As with many children, Sexauer said she was artistically expressive, “quite literally a ‘closet artist,’ secreting scribblings to those exact hidden wall spaces, along with the tops of book shelves, in books and on window sills.” Family artists were few -- a distant relative on her father’s side was a ceramic artist, and an aunt and uncle in 1926 posed for the original “Spirit of the Ocean” fountain sculpture stationed in front of the Santa Barbara courthouse. A re-creation and restoral of the national historic landmark sculpture was completed in 2011.

As an artist, Sexauer says “drawing is at the heart of my practice, and printmaking is for me, the most natural thread that extends out from that labyrinth. The tools have always seemed a natural extension of my hand, and I am ever mindful of the connection and collaboration with the once living material. The use primarily of woodcuts to forward this theme is particularly apt, as there is a chain that links the earth, the tree, the timber and finally, the paper the image is printed upon.”

Influences of her work include earlier prints that depict aspects of animal and plant kingdoms, particularly woodcuts by Conrad Gessner and Ernst Haeckel, as well as early graphics of microscopic animals. More recently Sexauer has developed an interest in architectural space.  She also derives inspiration for her productions from travel. “When one is thrown into a situation of a radically changed cultural environment, one’s work cannot help but to grow and be liberated,” said Sexauer.

For further information about the “Taproot” exhibit, please call 951-785-2170. Gallery hours are Mon. – Thurs., 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. La Sierra University is located at 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, Riverside. A campus map is available at https://lasierra.edu/campus-map/.