Susana Aldanondo (b. 1976) is an Argentine-American post war painter.

Currently completing her Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) at the New York Academy of Art, where she was awarded the Academy Scholar Scholarship and the Susan Wasserstein Award.  The New York Academy of Art is a graduate art school in TriBeCa,  founded by Andy Warhol.   

Aldanondo studies with luminaries such as Heidi Hahn, Ted Schmidt, John Horn, among others at the New York Academy of Art.  Through academic training and research, she is embracing realism and figurative art, and finding her own voice in the figurative discipline.

She was awarded an Academy Scholar Award, and the Susan Wasserstein Patron of the Arts Award toward her graduate studies.

She completed an Artist Residency at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where she has been encouraged to conduct academic research on European art masters, their painting techniques and biographies, guided by art master and historian Ted Schmidt.

She is a graduate of the Diploma for Fine Arts  in Painting at The Art Students League of New York, where other artists such as Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe, Mark Rothko, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeoisie, also studied.    While there, she studied with renowned abstract masters.

There, she  won a Merit Scholarship by The Art Students League and was the winner of the Leonard Rosenfeld Award. She was selected by curators of The Museum of Modern Art in NYC (MoMA) Mitra Abbaspour PhD.,  James Lee  PS1MoMA for said scholarship.
CLICK HERE to view selection, announced on Linea Magazine.

In past years she also won a juried competition, juried by the Milken Family Foundation juried by Benedict Leca, PH.D., Executive Director at the Redwood Library & Athenaeum, Norah Diedrich, Executive Director at Newport Art Museum, Qianni Zhu, Milken Family Postbaccalaureate Fellow in Museum Practice, Colby College Museum.

Her work and her approach has been reviewed by Forbes Latin-America in Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador and Uruguay, and by local NYC based contemporary art magazines such as Hyperallergic, WhiteHot Magazine, and europe's Artland Magazine. 

 Believing all art forms are connected, Susana finds freedom to explore ideas, styles, and different mediums.

The lines which are prominent in her work may also make reference to her Latin-American culture, specifically related to Argentina, and to the iconic ‘fileteado’ style characteristic of the art and tango connection of Buenos Aires, Argentina; but may also reference the synchronicity of life, the paths we take, or the energy of a given moment or sound. 

Susana's work has expanded to embrace geometrical abstraction, her inspiration is the city, the subway lines and simplicity through black backgrounds.

She has been subject to collaborations with musicians, composers and scholars of the Juilliard Music School in New York City, Columbia University, later contributing to the National Arts Diversity and Integration Association for their inaugural Art Currents Exhibit that integrated jazz and the visual arts in Harlem, NY where she was invited as the leading visual artist of the exhibit.

 Her work was selected for the group exhibition “Creating Joy”, featuring works of art inspired by music at the Susquehanna Art Museum.

Other collaborations exploring sound and visual arts include the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Noa Fort Quartet in an exploration of improvised reactions to music and the visual art forms; Aldanondo painted to live to the music of the musicians and composers who also improvised their music inspired by Aldanondo’s painting; exploring the human experience related to sound in the present moment as part of an exhibition “Sound & Sight: A Duet” presented by The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and curated by NAscentNY in a private event and exhibition in Brooklyn Heights, NY. 

She was invited to paint to tango by AvanTango and Grammy nominee Pablo Aslan at the Lower East Side, New York. She collaborated with New York City based tango orchestras during their celebratory events of the centennial honoring renowned tango composer, Astor Piazzolla. She has also painted live at a Flushing Business Gala at the Sheraton Hotel, in New York.

Aldanondo is known for painting in the public spaces of New York City, which led her to create her series “City As Studio” consisting of some of her best work of nonrepresentational painting painted in streets of the city of New York.

Through this experience she also began exploring the human relationship between the art forms and the visual advertisements often found on the walls where she paints, as an added factor to our surroundings and our perceptions of the self, the ephemeral, and the physical spaces around us.  She comes into contact with people from all walks of life: writers, photographers, artists, drunkmen, tourists, drug addicts, models, business people, the homeless, and she values each of those interactions, drawing inspiration from each and giving value to each. 

This special project which became an ongoing practice, also led her to create a program that showcases artists from around the world on walls around the city, it has evolved into a program titled Studio in the Streets Program in which Aldanondo hosts artists from around the world seeking to experience stepping outside of their studios and into the public realm of the streets of New York. 

Aldanondo curated the Social Media feed during exhibitions (2020-2024) for the New York Society of Women Artists.
Board Member 2020-2024, juried member 2020-2024. The New York Society of Women Artists dismissed her membership and removed her from the organization after she inquired about their lack of transparency in their spending and non-inclusive member selection. They removed her based on her perceived ‘young age’ claiming her inquiry was divisive and not productive to the current president’s decisions of paid members.

RESIDENCIES & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Metropolitan Museum of Art - Artist Residency, New York, New York

School of Visual Arts NYC - Artist Residency - New York, New York

ICELAND - Artist Residency program was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Iceland. Eyrarbakki, Iceland. Susana was selected to join a group of fellow international artists who came together to explore the sense of time and identity, empathy and compassion. While there, Susana worked closely with the local town, school and with Litla-Hraun the largest prison in Iceland, to help create an art festival bringing together everyone in the community, based on the concepts of empathy and compassion, while learning about social interaction, Icelandic festivities & identity, and the social, justice, and welfare system.  She led a painting workshop for 40-50 inmates. She also led a workshop sharing her experience as an abstract expressionist artist at the local school. She led the art workshop during the art festival at the local prison.

City As Studio - self imposed artist residency/project in New York City (2018 to present)

SPECIAL FEATURES 

CBS - The Equalizer, featuring three works, 2022, curated by - Hollywood Art Curator & Art Advisor.

SAMSUNG USA - Finalist, featured on Samsung USA, 2019. 

AWARDS & RECOGNITION 

Academy Scholar Scholarship by The New York Academy of Art toward the MFA degree. 

Susan Wasserstein Patron of the Arts Scholar Award - New York Academy of Art

Merit Scholarship Award Winner in Abstract Painting - The Art Students League of New York

The Leonard Rosenfeld Award - through the generosity of the Leonard Rosenfeld Fund and Leonard Rosenfeld’s wife, through The Art Students League of New York selected by jurors of The Museum of Modern Art in NYC (MoMA)  for said scholarship.  Jurors:  Mitra Abbaspour PhD., MoMA,  James Lee  PS1MoMA for said scholarship.  CLICK HERE to view selection, announced on Linea Magazine.

James Little Student Exhibition - Honorable Mention 

Larry Poons Student Exhibition - Red Dot winner * by professors & peers.

Hamptons Fine Art Fair Chief Curator’s Best In Booth Award 

Hamptons Fine Art Fair Chief Curator’s Picks Award 

Best in Show - London, UK

National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) Abstract Painting Juried Award Winner

Jackson’s Painting Prize (London, UK) Long-listed

Samsung USA - Featured artist 

ArtScope Magazine - Winner. Juried by The Milken Family Foundation, The Newport Contemporary Art Museum and the Colby College Museum. 

Artweek - London, UK Best Art Award Winner. New York