Susana was exposed to art from a young age, daughter to a NYC based artist and muralist, she learned to sketch, color theory, and paint preparation techniques from her father. As a teenager, Susana would take the NYC subway into the city to visit art museums and would visit libraries to read about art and artists whose works she’d see at the museums.
However, Susana would find her own artistic voice years down the road, after exploring her interest in abstract expressionism and taking classes with masters William Scharf and Frank O’Cain, at the Art Students League of New York. Susana skillfully masters the play that exists between different colors, lights and shadows, rhythm and energy.
After receiving a merit recognition and winning a competition juried by The Milken Family Foundation, the Director at The Newport Contemporary Art Museum and the Colby College Museum, she has been the subject of group exhibits internationally and her work was also selected and featured by SAMSUNG USA, and was selected to be displayed at the Susquehanna Art Museum, for a group exhibit of works of art inspired by music. She was nominated for the Creative Climate Awards by The Human Impact Institute of New York, and was also shortlisted to participate of Climate Change related Outdoor Exhibit in London, UK.
In 2019, her work was selected by curators and members of The New Museum NYC, Sotheby's Art Institute, The Andy Warhol Museum, to take part of a group show at The World Trade Center in NYC. Susana has become known as the artist who paints in the rain, after challenging herself to paint under any circumstances and because she found that rain could contribute to her creative process, she has incorporated it into some of her work. The idea behind painting in the rain points to how we are often confronted with chaos and obstacles in life, it can be chaotic to paint in the rain, so this experience is part of Susana’s way of exploring chaos, obstacles and being able to find something positive within any given situation we might face.
While Susana recognizes the value of silence, she can hardly paint without music. Most of her works are inspired by music. Susana paints to music, often listening to jazz, tango, flamenco, and world music, which inspires the lines & movement found in her thick & thin brushstrokes.
Through her choice of color, the use of gestural lines and titles to her work, Susana seeks to guide the viewer into understanding her process and her intention behind each painting. She has also created a ‘No Intentions’ painting series which seek to allow total freedom of interpretation to her viewers without any specific influence on her part. Susana holds a Bachelor’s degree from Nord University, a Translation degree from Hunter College, NY, and earned two certificates in Urban Ecology and Climate Change through Cornell University’s Professional Certificate Programs. She also recently participated of two Certificate Programs at MoMA NYC, led by Lisa Mazzola. Susana studied abstract art, color theory, painting techniques and sketching at The Art Students League in NYC, with abstract master Frank O’Cain.
Susana’s works can be found in private collectors’ homes in New York City, Westchester New York, Purchase New York, San Francisco California, France, Spain, Denmark, UK and Brazil.
Susana believes in helping others and some of her works have been donated to institutions dedicated to helping others such as Special Citizens in NYC, Fashion Fights Cancer in NYC, The Calm Zone in London, UK, Southern Vermont Medical Center in VT, USA, and NYC Homeless. Susana is often actively seeking to collaborate with institutions that work to improve the lives of those in need.
ART RESIDENCIES:
Iceland, 2019-2020. Worked closely with the local town, school and prison, to create an art festival that offered exposing the community to her abstract expressionist style while fostering the idea that each person can develop their own style, and use art for self expression. Susana, along with a group of international artists and organizers worked to bring art workshops to the largest prison in Iceland, fostering a sense of compassion and nonjudgemental opportunities through the arts.
MEMBERSHIPS
New York Society of Women Artists- Soho, NYC. Susana’s works were presented to a rigorous jury panel made up of art instructors, art masters, and SOHO-NYC gallerists, and she was the only painter accepted by a unanimous vote. The New York Society of Women Artists is a NYC Historical organization founded in 1925 to create equity and opportunities for leading women in the arts.
