#23 TACG, from the Transformation series, 1996, unique combined media monoprints 
on photographic paper, each 16x20”, Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery, NYC

SUSAN RANKAITIS

The four pieces presented in Synthethic Lightning are from a series of 24 monoprints that I made in 1996. Each contains a different permutation of the letters CGAT representing the base nucleotides. They became the "sketches" for a larger project, SPR synthesis, which was a collaboration that I started in 2002 with dancer John Pennington and molecular biologist Robert Sinsheimer.   

Susan Rankaitis was born in Cambridge , MA and currently teaches in the Art department at Scripps College in Claremont , CA . She received her MFA in Painting and Photography from the University of Southern California . She has exhibited her work in solo shows at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego , the Robert Mann Gallery in NYC (where she is represented), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson , and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in Rochester . Selected group shows include those at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Contemporary Museum in Hawaii , Princeton University Museum , the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Susan is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists Fellowships in photography, the US/France NEA Visual Artists Residency, and a Durfee Foundation American/Chinese Adventure Grant. Published in more than thirty catalogs and books, she has also been featured in Doubletake , Japan Times, New Art Examiner, Los Angeles Herald, Artweek, Chicago Sun Times, and the Center’s own PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly Magazine.