Su Su is an American artist, born into a Manchurian clan family in Beijing, She lived in Pittsburgh for 15 years and
currently lives and works in New York.
Artist Statement
‘‘My painting practice revolves around two bodies of work: painting on canvas and painting on silk. Both employ oil paint, though in radically different ways. In each, oil functions as both medium and methodology, facilitating metamorphic figurative paintings that explore the intersections of cultural memory and representations of femininity.
I approach painting as both vessel and instrument, a way of connecting with the physical world while revealing what lies just beyond it. Oil paint becomes a body through which psychological, spiritual, and emotional states take form. I work with tools of my own invention, extensions of my hands, and paint from both the front and back of the surface. This physical engagement transforms painting into something instinctive, tactile, and deeply felt.
I create scenes where figures and objects act as vessels, carrying spirit, memory, morality, and feeling. Everyday moments become spaces for cultural resonance and ancestral presence. Myth and metaphor emerge not as narrative, but as presence—folded into gestures that link the personal to something older, larger, and shared.’’
Bio
Susu received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she also served as a professor of painting in the School of Drama from 2015 to 2021.
Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville), the de la Cruz Collection (Miami), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), the Momentary (Bentonville), Muskegon Museum of Art (Michigan), See World Art and Culture Center (Shenzhen), and the Chautauqua Institution of Visual Arts (New York), among others.
Her paintings are held in the permanent collections of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the de la Cruz Collection, the Lunar Codex project (NASA, Moon), and the Bennett Collection of Women Figurative Realists, among others.
Susu’s work has been featured in The New York Times, ARTFORUM, Hyperallergic, Artsy Editorial, GALERIE Magazine, JUXTAPOZ, and American Art Collector, among other publications.