Patricia RAIN Gianneschi is a Visual Artist, Musician, Teacher, Gardener, Thinker, Activist, Moth-er, Wife, Sister, Daughter, Lover, Friend. She was born and raised in Chicago and is an artist working across Poetics. In her multimedia work, whether music or visual art, the intersection of social justice and spirituality is a thread that runs through all the disciplines of her work. As a teaching artist with students, from the classroom to the stage at the Art Institute of Chicago, she weaves a pedagogy with the same threads of spirituality and social justice. Her paintings, prints and drawings going back over 35+ years represent an artistic practice rich in ideas, con-tent, creativity and authenticity. RAIN is currently a founding member of the art collective: MOTHER ART: REVISITED
Educated in the Arts at University of California, Berkeley. RAIN holds two degrees from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Master’s in Art Education, and a Master of Fine Arts. She has served as a teaching artist for the Chicago Public Schools for 22 years, and as adjunct faculty in Art Education at The School of the Art institute of Chicago.

STATEMENT
“As a multimedia artist using paint, words, performance and music as a portal for imagination and spirit, I am involved with the process of Becoming and Creating.
Secret messages are hidden in the textures and shapes of my work. I employ basic compositional elements of narrative, in abstraction.
In my work, my desire is to bring the viewer into a space where they become open to the forces of imagination and spirit. I believe Art can transform us. I believe art can take us to a new awareness, create new sensations, and form. For me, the act of painting is an act of spiritual practice. I enter the painting with body and mind, searching for the images as I wander through the canvas, or pick up a pen, or my guitar, or sit down and touch the keys on my piano. I am an artist.
In my effort to create an environment that might induce AWE, in some of my work I have not yet abandoned the figure. In newer work, I begin to un-paint the paintings, creating work that is more minimal, and monochromatic. I begin adding texture, using collaged papers and hidden text to the work. These secret messages, these hidden words, parallel the silencing of our histo-ries. In my desire to elicit a response from the viewer, I employ basic compositional elements of narrative, in abstraction, allowing the viewer to breath in color, image and texture, allowing the viewer to form their own narrative, and thereby gain an insight into my investigation of my personal necessity to bring forth the Spiritual in Art”