Serene Wise, a painter, studied art and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (B.A.), the University of Chicago (M.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.U.P., Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning).

I am a painter, a minimalist. My work is influenced by a long line of minimalist practitioners from Josef Albers to Daniel Buren. Minimalists look at the formal problems of composition
and then reduce the number of elements and/or deconstruct the elements.

My work focuses on lines: I love lines, especially parallel lines. I am endlessly fascinated by the power and eloquence of lines. My paintings are, indeed, line studies — studies in the linear geometry of visual rhythms. The paintings are designed in series and each series becomes a self-generating exploration of a defined visual rhythm. Each series expands from the first statement of a visual rhythm by manipulating its geometry. The excitement is in making the first statement and then exploring its consequences. The simple then turns into the complex.

The schemes of my recent series are deliberately simple — minimal. This simplicity invites changes in rhythm in every direction and creates complexity. I am using either horizontal or vertical lines over the background fields and I use translucent and/or opaque textures for contrasts: the brushed line, the screened line, the sanded line, a light wash of line. My objective is to attract light and create depth. As I vary the dimensions of lines and intervals between lines, new spatial relationships develop. These relationships change again depending on which background field receives which overlay of lines.

I work with square formats using oil on cotton canvas. Paint is applied in layers - many layers. This ‘hand process’ produces irregularities which I accept as part of the composition.

Headshot: Richard Shipps, 2010, taken in the CAC Gallery on West Pierce Avenue.

Image: 40 degree angle (one panel from the eleven panel series, how to pivot 90 degrees), 2022, oil on canvas on panel, 24" x 30" x 1".

(updated 2025)