Susana Aldanondo

Abstract Expressionist artist Susana Aldanondo is known for her visually artistic style inspired by tango and jazz music. Susana paints with the same rhythm and dynamism of an orchestral ensemble, dripping, splattering and swirling paint across the canvas. Her highly distinguished paintings are alive with tropical, zesty colours, and many of her works explore themes of human connection and intimacy.

The artist is currently working on her MFA at the New York Academy of the Arts in Tribeca, New York. A graduate of The Art Students League of New York’s rigorous studio program, Susana has a Fine Arts Diploma in New York. Upon acceptance into the MFA, she received an award for the Scholar Academy Scholarship and the Susan Wasserstein Patron Scholar Award. She was the winner of the Leonard Rosenfeld Merit Scholarship in 2022 and one of the winners of the Merit Scholarship awarded by a jury of independent jurors, curators of the MoMA and PS1MoMA. She won a competition juried by the Milken Family Foundation, the director at the Newport Museum of Contemporary Art and a curator at the Colby Museum.

Susana Aldanondo’s Education & Inspiration

Susana received her Fine Arts degree alongside art masters Frank O’Cain and Ronnie Landfield at the Art Students League of New York. Iconic artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, among others, taught or studied here too. Growing up in New York City taught Susana a deep appreciation and love for different cultures. The eccentricity, pace and vibrancy of the concrete jungle shines through in glorious and galvanised works such as The Night Is Ours, a dancing duet of acrylic and speckled, gestural and gyrating marks. Continuous line motifs and organised chaos feature widely in Susana’s paintings; the artist is interested in the concept of synchronicity, destiny, and our willingness or unwillingness to keep going, “even when we don’t see where the road is taking us”.

Her interest in the relationship between sound and emotion led her to collaborate with musicians from the Juilliard School of Music in New York, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and independent musicians and jazz orchestras in Queens, New York. Her work took part in the Gala for The Art Students League held at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Gala for The New York Foundation of the Arts, and other benefit galas for honourable causes.

Exhibitions & Recognition

Susana won a competition juried by The Milken Family Foundation and the Director at The Newport Contemporary Art Museum. She has taken part in international group exhibitions, including The Other Art Fair London, MvVO Art Show at the Oculus, The World Trade Center in NYC, Tokyo, and Switzerland, and in exhibits curated by The New Museum NYC, Sotheby's, The Andy Warhol Museum and ArtBest. Susana has also collaborated with composers and performers from the Juilliard School of Music in NYC, Columbia University, NYC, and participants of the Musaics of The Bay Foundation. Her work was selected by and featured at the Four Seasons Hotel, New York.

She is a Juried Member, Board Member, and Chair of Marketing of The New York Society of Women Artists, an organization founded in 1925 and recently granted historical status by the State of New York. Her work was featured on the show The Equalizer, curated by a renowned Hollywood curator, and sought after by renowned collectors in the United States who organize benefit galas for notable causes. In the past, Samsung USA also featured one of her works.

She was commissioned by the renowned Rema Hort Mann Foundation to create three pieces for their benefit in Ruttkowski68 Gallery in Tribeca, New York. Recent exhibitions include a group exhibition of works honouring the great master Hugo Bastidas, of works handpicked to be shown alongside his work, and sponsored by Hofstra University and CUNY-Hunter College, the scholarship winners exhibition at the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery on 57th Street, New York, New York, and the Final Project Exhibition also at the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery.

She was an artist in residence in Iceland, helping to organize an arts festival and held a painting workshop in a local school and local prison, as she explored the theme of compassion, empathy and art through an initiative sponsored in part by the Ministry of Culture of southern Iceland. Her work has caught the eye of Forbes Argentina and Latin America, the renowned NYC-based Hyperallergic, and WhiteHot Magazine.

Susana explores the ‘here and now’ and the relationship between place, music, and identity. She can often be found painting nonrepresentational work in the public spaces of New York City. Aldanondo also holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a focus on the High North and Indigenous People’s studies. She also studied Communications and Art History at Hunter College, New York, and a Digital Marketing and Graphic Design Certificate from Parsons School of Design.

Her work can be found in The Permanent Collection at The Art Students League of New York, the D. Lubecki Family Collection in Iceland, the A. Balliro Family Collection in East Hampton & SoHo, New York, and the P. Hall Family Collection in London, U, the N. Lane Collection in Harlem, New York and in private collectors’ homes around the world.