Gay Riseborough is a well-known portrait and figure painter. She taught for fourteen years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and ten, before that, at the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL. Her portraits were represented by Portraits/Chicago. Her work hangs from Paris to California, in prestigious collections, i.e. Northwestern University, Loyola Medical Center, Monmouth College, Beloit College, Southern Illinois University, Washington University St. Louis, and in corporations and private homes.

Her “Dark Times” series of large, narrative self-portraits (1999) received critical acclaim and was shown in one-person exhibitions at Wood Street Gallery in Chicago and at several regional colleges. Individual pieces from that series are often invited into Chicago area group exhibitions. In later years, Gay taught small classes in her Evanston studio, retiring in 2011. She has often been called on to jury and to judge local art fair exhibitions. Currently, she serves on the Evanston Arts Council, as Chair of the Public Art Committee, which selects and commissions art for public placement.