Sunny Raschke
Sunny Raschke was born and raised in Chicago, but moved to Dallas and became an adopted Texan in her late 20s.
After early retirement from a career in the women’s fashion industry, she set out to pursue her early life ambition, cut short by a devastating family tragedy, to become a visual artist.
She studied for a time under the renowned artist Donna Adams and began exhibiting in the mid-2000s around the North Texas and Southern Oklahoma region.
She has shown her work at both juried and private exhibitions in the American West and Southwest and has been active with local arts development and promotional organizations, including Converge Denver (currently Transforming Creatives Studios) and the Visual Arts
League of Lewisville (TX). She also served in a stint as co-director of The Edge Gallery in Carrollton, Texas from 2015-17.
In late 2014, she was invited by the internationally acclaimed Austrian artist and cultural organizer Renate Polzer to do a black-and-white show at the ERPE gallery in Vienna. The exhibition, entitled “Signs”, was co-hosted by Projekt Gemeinde, founded by a descendant of the artist Gustav Klimt, the iconic and world-famous pioneer of modernism.
She has also been contracted for book covers for international distribution by two book publishers – The Davies Group and Edinburgh University Press.
After the Covid lockdowns in the early 2020s, she began repurposing her work toward a theme she calls “Art for Overcomers”. Her current art, which includes fluid abstract designs, vibrant, colors, multiple layers, and rough texture, is aimed at motivating people from all walks of life, especially those with addictions and disabilities, to become artists themselves.
The inspiration came from her grandson Kes, who as a talented digital music composer is currently under contract with the British publisher Bloomsbury to write a book along with his
author father Erik Raschke on overcoming autism. She gives a percentage of the works she sells to autism research.
Sunny and her husband, Professor Carl Raschke, currently reside with their four cats in Denison, Texas as well as at their retreat property on the Oklahoma side of Lake Texoma.