As a young art student in 1973, Roxanne Sexauer fantasized about studying with the last surviving German Expressionist modernist woodcut master, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884 – 1976). Her earliest works crackle with the anxious and dark angularities of classic German Expressionism, her homage to a movement in which woodcut printmaking played a major role. Eventually her youthful enthusiasm waned, and by the 1980s, Sexauer embraced post modernism, developing a hybrid, layered approach that mixes botanical and zoological forms with ideas and images from the history of science and printmaking. Finding this direction fruitful, it continues to inform her oeuvre.

Now at mid-career, the Long Beach continues to work mainly in woodcut, though in recent years she has combined it with lithography, silkscreen and collagraphy. Of her work, curator Gordon Fuglie says, “I have seen her imagery progress for two decades. Roxanne’s art is distinctive because it is complex, vibrant, and always recognizable for its adroit use of technique with multiple images bearing layers of meaning. Connoisseurs regard her as one of the best woodcut artists in the region.” In addition, as the former Head of the Printmaking Discipline, Department of Art, Cal. State University, Long Beach, Sexauer built and oversaw one of the best-equipped graphic arts labs in California, and whose graduates continue advanced studies at major universities throughout North America.   

Despite her strong accomplishments, however, Sexauer’s art has not enjoyed the acknowledgement it deserves. In recognition of her role as an influential educator and leading printmaker, Sight Readings addresses this oversight in presenting the first career survey of this important artist. Comprising 30 key works, the exhibition is organized chronologically, beginning with a 1973 self-portrait in the German Expressionist style, concluding with the monumental wood & linoleum cut, Pythia, from 2011.   

Sexauer has been awarded numerous artists’ residencies at schools, art centers and museums outside of California and has been interviewed on National Public Radio. Her work is in a number of collections, including the University of Kansas Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence), the University of Dallas and the University of Iowa (Iowa City). In California, Sexauer’s graphics are in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the South Bay Museum of Contemporary Art (Torrance) and the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art.


Sight Readings: A 35-Year Survey of Work by Roxanne Sexauer is organized by the Central California Museum of Art and is curated by Gordon Fuglie, the CCMA’s Director and Head of Curatorial Affairs.

above: Ship of Fools, 2002, woodcut, lithograph & screenprint
right: Core: I (Red), 1996, woodcut, collagraph,lithograph & screenprint