About The Artist
My work responds to the unfolding absences of the climate catastrophe. It reaches for different ways of being and knowing — a practice that opens to the more-than-human world as anthropologist Tim Ingold describes, a correspondence that keeps the world alive and emergent. My work begins during walks in Northern California. I am curious about how we perceive and build relationships with specific places.
After an extended time as a designer in the Bay Area tech world, Rainey returned to creative practice. Earlier projects explored the impact of technology on the body/mind and the world of computer games as art. Rainey’s current inquiry focuses on building relationships with the more-than-human world.
Rainey was selected for residencies at the Morris Graves Foundation and Lucid Arts in 2024. Her most recent work, The Old Growth Project, was featured in a solo member showcase at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and in The New Geologic Epoch (Ecoartspace) and Art & Ecology (O’Hanlon Center for the Arts). She has also had past shows at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto, Canada.
Select publications include Dark Mountian Journal, UnPsychology Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, Rhizome Online, Videogames, and Art, edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. She holds a BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts. She lives on the unceded land of the Coast Miwok in present-day Marin County in Northern California.
Acrylic Paint, Watercolor, Photography, Mixed Media, Sculpture
Studio Information
Woodland Studios
2nd Floor Studio
Contact Information
415-823-3297
Exhibitions & Press
2025
Forest Unseen, The Petaluma Arts Center
2024
The Northern California Open, Marin MOCA
The Old Growth Project, Solo Member Showcase, Marin MOCA
2023
The New Geologic Epoch, Ecoarts Space online exhibition and publication, Juror: Mary Mattingly
New Painting, Site Brooklyn Online, Brooklyn, NY., Juror: Rachel Gugelberger
Art and Ecology, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, CA., Juror: Obi Kaufmann, Artist/Author, California Field Atlas and The Coasts of California
Alternative Process, The Image Flow, San Anselmo, CA., Juried by Brenton Hamilton, Diane Chung, and Zack Sumner Schomp
Some Kind of Nature, Ecoarts Space at FOMA, Santa Fe, NM
2022
Annual Member Show, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, CA.
Cornucopia, Artworks Downtown, San Rafael, CA.
Small Works, Artworks Downtown, San Rafael, CA, Juror: Emebet Korn, Director Desta Gallery
Out of the Blue: Experiments with Cyanotypes, ACCI Gallery, Berkeley, CA.
Contemporary Botanicals, Artworks Downtown, San Rafael, CA., Juror: Vanessa Indies, Director Hashimoto Contemporary Gallery
2021
Extinction – 2021 Save the Planet, Gallerium.art Exhibits Online
2006
SimVeillance, Edge Conditions, The San Jose Museum of Art, ISEA 2006, San Jose, CA
Grrls, Chicks, Sisters & Squaws, Let Citoyennes du Cyberspace, MAWA, Winnipeg, Canada
2005
IMC Expo at the Chelsea Museum, New York, New York
Entermultimediale.2 (Festival of new media art), Prague, Czech Republic
2004
Performance Night, Works Gallery, San Jose, CA
New Fangle, GenArts, San Francisco, CA
Digifest, The Design Exchange Museum, Toronto, Canada
Bang the Machine, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Erotic LA, The Erotic Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Virtual Galleries, Timeexpo Museum, Waterbury, CN
2002
(Solo) Aphasia, Gallery 364 Hayes, San Francisco, CA
1111 – MFA Exhibition California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2000
5 At Eye Level, Rizzoli Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“I don’t know much about art, but…,” Live Culture Gallery, Oakland, CA
1998
Recent Work, Crucible Steel Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Gen Art Tour, with Sally Cote at San Francisco Open Studios, San Francisco, CA
Selections ‘98, The Academy of Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2022
Dark Mountain Journal: Issue 22 – ARK
WEAD Magazine Online: Issue No. 13 – The Politics of Empathy
Unpsychology Magazine: Warm Data, Issue 8, Cover and Feature
Aeonian Magazine, Experimental and Alternative Photography, Online – Issue 6
2006
Honorable Mention, Adobe Emerging Artists Award, Zero One/ISEA: Global Festival of Art on the Edge
Electronic Arts Project Support Grant
2004
New Voices Winner Digifest
1999
Artist’s Grant Recipient – The Vermont Studio Center
San Francisco Art Council Grant finalist
2012
Ho, Yin, Speaking in Blobjects: A Conversation with Katherine Isbister and Rainey Straus, Rhizome, February 13, 2012
2007
Clarke, Andy and Mitchell, Grethe, Videogames and Art, Intellect Books
2006
Antonucci, Mike, San Jose meets the Sims, San Jose Mercury News, August 5, 2006
Winn, Steven, It’s hard to tell where pixels end and reality begins, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 6, 2006
2005
Casolari, Pierluigi, Interview with Rainey Straus and Katherine Isbister
2004
Casolari, Pierluigi, “Vista la SimGallery”, Glamour Magazine (Italian edition), Dec. 2004 2003
Cohn, Terri, “Rainey Straus”, Sculpture Magazine, October 2003
Bianco, Alessandro Piana, “Ten Questions on the SimGallery Project”, AWCR.org
1998
Colin, Berry, “Featured Open Studio Artist”, CitySearch7 online
Colin, Berry, “Recent Work at Crucible Steel Gallery”, CitySearch7 online
Education
MFA Sculpture, California College of the Arts
BFA Painting, State University of New York at Purchase
