Lorraine Serena
University of California Santa Barbara, BA, MFA
Artist
Founder/Artistic Director, Women Beyond Borders
Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. Satoro
Lorraine Serena began her career with a series of extensive collaborative installations at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1969, ’70, and ’71. These interactive environments described by critic Richard Ames as a ”raucous display of visual virtuosity,” included over 600 student participants. Serena continues synergistic work to this day by way of the international collaboration, Women Beyond Borders, initiated with artist friends. With over 1,000 artists in 50 nations, this endeavor has honored and connected women for over two decades. The WBB process, acting as a catalyst for building community, expanded Serena’s art form into the realm of what is today considered public practice. womenbeyondborders.org
Individual work has simultaneously continued via paintings, collages and found object tableaux which have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Selection of venues:
LACE, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan; Fuel Gallery, Seattle; Site Gallery, Los Angeles; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum; National Museum of Women in the Arts, DC; Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana; Sam Francis Gallery, Santa Monica; Lango Forum on Women, Beijing, China; Center for Visual Arts, Oakland; Philip J. Steele Gallery, Denver; The New York Academy of Art, NYC; Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami; Lang Art Gallery, Scripps Claremont Colleges, Pomona; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago; The Woman’s Building, Los Angeles; National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi; Contemporary Museum of Oaxaca, Mexico; Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, Switzerland; The State Russian Museum Complex, St. Petersburg, Russia; Galleria Extra Moenia Arte Contemporanea, Todi, Italy; Teen Dewal Mandir Temple Kathmandu, Nepal; Akino Fuko Museum, Tenryu, Japan; Sculpture Square, Singapore.
Mentors have included Howard Warshaw, William Ptazynski, Bill Rhorbach, Irma Cavat, William Dole, Bruce McCurdy and most recently, the paradigm shifting work with Suzanne Lacy and Suzi Gablic regarding Making Art as if the World Matters.