“…Sexauer is not simply playing games with our eyes or minds; she is stimulating them into a new appreciation of natural complexity and the richness of the everyday. Like the German Expressionists who have so clearly influenced her, Sexauer believes nature is a cosmic force and that we can connect to its vitality through our sight."
Peter Frank, Los Angeles Art Critic
“Woodcuts are about linear form or pattern, an art of high contrast. But Sexauer’s forms are not reducible to mere contours of things. This would deny them their aesthetic power to transport us to the threshold of mystery, where we enter into vibrant metaphors drawn from the Biosphere, finding our being, our embodiment in the world created by the artist's hand, the blend of matter and mind, form and content.”
Gordon L. Fugle, Director, Central California Museum of Art
Personal Bio/Summary
Ever the “shoe made for the city,” Roxanne Sexauer was born in the Bronx, New York, during an era when fathers were considered the authority and mothers often lamented the inevitability of a life centered around sons. Her father, born in Santa Barbara, California, had a formal education that ended at the sixth-grade level. Her mother, born in New York City, changed her distinctly Eastern European name to “Ann Parker” to better adapt to mainstream America.
With both BFA and MFA degrees in Printmaking, Sexauer studied first with Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa and later with Antonio Frasconi at the State University of New York at Purchase.
Photo: Sunny Chung
Throughout her distinguished career, she earned numerous prestigious residencies across the United States, including Palenville Interarts in upstate New York, The Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, Georgia, Dorland Mountain in Temecula, California, Lily Press Residency in Rockville, Maryland, and at the Tamarind Lithographic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She participated in the faculty arts exchange program “Summer Arts” at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and was a printmaking Artist-in-Residence at The Plains Museum of Art, Hannagher’s print Studio, Fargo, North Dakota.
Internationally, she made her mark through residencies at Black Church Printmaking Studio in Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland; the Skaftfell Residency Program in Seydisfjordur, Iceland; and the Beisinghoff Printmaking Residency in Diemelstadt-Rhoden, Germany.
As a Professor Emerita at California State University, Long Beach, where she began teaching in 1989, she served for many years as the head of her discipline. She taught comprehensive studio courses as well as the History of Prints and Drawings while there. Additionally, she led Relief Printmaking workshops at the prestigious Frogman’s Press and Print Workshop in Beresford and Vermillion, South Dakota.
Before moving to Southern California, Sexauer developed and taught curriculum for "The Survey of Printmaking for Non-Visual Arts Majors" and "The History of Printmaking" at SUNY Purchase. In the 1970s, she played an integral role in an NEA-funded initiative through the Iowa Arts Council titled: "I Hope They Keep Coming." In 2019, LACMA recognized her as one of the influential women in the Los Angeles printmaking community.