Dorothea Rockburne  Born 1932  Contemporary artist Dorothea
Rockburne, part of an influential 1960s circle of artists and
performers, became known for austere, yet complex and
referential works.  While bouts of pneumonia often confined her
in early childhood, Rockburne soon became an avid attendant of
weekend art classes at Montreal’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Her
formal art training continued at Black Mountain College in North
Carolina, where Rockburne found her work influenced by peers
Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and modern-dance pioneer Merce
Cunningham.  In New York City, Rockburne participated in various
dance classes and joined innovative performing artists Steve
Paxton, Carolee Schneemann, and former classmate Rauschenberg in
the Judson Dance Theater Collective. Rockburne's first one-woman
exhibition, held in New York in 1970, launched her career as a
full-time visual artist.  Since then she has produced numerous
series of largely monochromatic works known as painted
structures, inspired by such diver