Su Su is an American artist, born into a traditional Manchurian clan family in Beijing, and currently lives and works in New York.
Artist Statement
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.
Press
Conversation-Presented by Falcon collective NY. “R U Still Painting”, Host: Massimiliano Gioni, Panelist: Robert Storr, Adrianne Rubenstain, Austin Lee, Elizabeth Neel, Jason Fox, Su Su, Sam Barski.
Featured work-"Wonder Woman: Art of the Asian Diapora", Publisher: Rizzoli, Text by Kathy Huang, Contributions by Aleesa Pichamarn Alexander, Genny Lim, Delia Cai, Kavin Kwan, and Faiha Roisin. 2025
Featured work "Making Strides", Muskegon Museum of Art, Museum Magazine, 2025
Interview-Su Su in conversation with Lucy Liu, Civil Art Publishing, Civil Art, NY, 2025
Featured artwork-The Bennet Prize for Female Figurative Artist, ArtForum Magazine, 2024
Conversation- Meet the Artist Su Su, Studio Incamminati, School for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2023
Video interview-Su Su Talks About Her Creative Process, short video screening, Andy Warhol Museum, 2022
Online Interview Forum 83 - "Counterpressures: Meet the artist: Su Su", Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2022
Online interview-"Portraiture, Identity and Pandemic" conversation with Susu and Yi Cao, International Chinese Fine Arts Council, 2021
Conversation- Meet the Artist, De La Cruz Collection, Miami, 2021
Featured work by Su Su, State of the Art 2020, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 2020
Article- An interview with Susu, Fred Blauth, The RIB, 2018
Article- Su Su's Surreal Distorted Paintings Analyze the Politics of Presentation Through Imagined Worlds, Juxtapoz, 2018
Article-Su Su: Recent Paintings, ARTPULSE magazine, 2016