Wendy Raisanen: WTF?!
September 5–28, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, September 5, 6–9pm
Wendy Raisanen’s newest solo exhibition, WTF?!, features fine art quilts that depict important disruptions in American society and the anxiety of social media addiction.
Intricately pieced, intensely hued fabric quilts, some combined with paintings, depict disasters and social media memes expressing the beauty and tragedy of today. Images of loose shipping containers floating in water, a plantation fire, and other frustrating events are featured in detailed, pieced quilts.
Gallery Hours:
Fri 6–9pm
Sat & Sun 11am–2pm
or by appointment
Artist Statement
Like trying to read the graffiti on a freight train of shipping containers while driving 75 MPH on Interstate 10, I am grasping for knowledge, humor, and beauty on social media.
Rage and desperation are temporarily soothed by dark humor, astrology, and funny cat videos. Late-stage capitalism, reckonings, fires, floods, and loss are my unhappy obsessions. The search for dopamine hits, empathy, and thoughtfulness keeps me going, but sometimes, I’m dumbstruck.
While searching for wisdom, positivity, and inspiration in chaos, something like happiness appears briefly, then it’s lost. The search begins again for a life raft in the rough seas of social evolution.
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Five15Arts@Chartreuse is a collective of 12 artists who present a regular calendar of solo and group shows in their gallery on Historic Grand Avenue.