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 make cyanotypes and paintings rooted in direct experiences of walking the land. I am curious about how we perceive and build relationships with specific places.
After many years of working as a tech designer, Rainey has returned to art practice. Earlier work explored the impact of technology on the body/mind and the world of computer games as art. Her current inquiry turns away from human exceptionalism to collaborate with the more-than-human world. Rainey’s work has been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto, Canada. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center as an Artist’s grant recipient. Select publications include Dark Mountain Journal, Aeonian Magazine Online, Sculpture Magazine, Rhizome Online, Videogames and Art, edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. Rainey holds a BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts.
Acrylic Paint, Watercolor, Photography, Mixed Media, Sculpture
Studio Information
Woodland Studios
2nd Floor Studio
Contact Information
415-823-3297
Exhibitions & Press
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
