ARTIST STATEMENT

My work challenges the conventional.

It immerses itself in the present, it becomes a living testament that art is alive, painting is alive and it is happening right here, right now. It is a public commentary about fine art and it’s juxtaposition with street art and the labels and prejudices associated with the latter.

It is about defying challenges, defying labels and specifically about female empowerment.

It is informed by music, the context of the public space and the visuals around it, the constant flux of the city and its people. Though the viewers are in my surroundings, I make images that speak of my vision, though not everyone will understand or agree with it, that also becomes a central part of my work.

It opposes the ideology of a dominant mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, while using my work as a testament in unique ways to make my point.

It challenges labels, and prejudice.

It becomes a performance that enjoys the freedom of expression that I believe art owns and that I, as a creator own, while sticking to this narrative of opposing that which is expected, including considering how the audience will enter or interpret the work.
It is about empowerment, my personal experience and an active statement of empowering myself as well as others, individually and collectively.

Some consider me a rebellious spirit, and in so doing affirm that art is an act of rebellion. However, I know and own the path I walk, and I walk it in red shoes.

In figuration, my body of work embraces mistakes, it doesn’t seek realistic perfection. It is a statement of opposing aesthetic pressure as well. It is about female empowerment. Overcoming our invisible places in society.

It resonates with street culture, music, female empowerment. It may portray a seemingly powerless figure, daring to use her body as a force of ownership, again, while walking in red shoes even through the most lacking environments of society.

My work in abstraction as well as figurative pieces voice the need to emphasize that art is what we see happening now, it embraces my personal experience, my vision, as well as that of others right here or at a distant place across the miles.

I strongly hope to encapsulate my belief that contemporary art can benefit from the knowledge of art history, but must make an active decision to belong to the present and to the artist’s unique experience without imprisoning the artist to any belief, choosing their own.

I believe that there is no authentic creation that is determined only by the confines of art history.

An artist must decide where to and how to belong, as embodiment of their work.

I choose here and now, I choose the streets of NYC.

“Of All Places and Time: Here & Now”

‘I belong to my roots, and to my shadows and lights, I belong to my womanhood, to the spiritual, to the urban, to the woods, to the moon.

I belong to that tune, a tango, jazz, rap, hip hop.

I belong to the day, and to the night.

I belong to myself and to those I owe my life to.

I belong to the little hands that reach out for my embrace.

I belong to my dark hour, which saw me emerge.

I belong right here and now, and in the public spaces of New York City.

I belong to my predecessors, who valiantly guide me.

I belong to Art, and Art belongs to me.

I belong to it all, and it, to me.’

Susana Aldanondo

Some of my Favorite Quotes

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

”All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges

”No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses. One day, perhaps some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.”  Wislawa Szymborska

"He who strongly desires to rise up, will think of a way to build a ladder."  Japanese proverb

”I’ll stay out till I get in.”  Faith Ringgold

”Destiny is a series of detours.”  Unknown

”I was this way before I met you, I walked the same streets and ate the same foods. Even before I met you I was already in love with you, and sometimes, not just a few times, I missed you already, as if I had known I needed you.”  Julio Cortázar

“She spent too much money on clothes, the hairdresser and shoes, not realizing that he’d rather see her naked, with messy hair and barefoot.”  Julio Cortázar

“I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body. I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom among phantoms.”  Robert Desnos

”I know there is no straight road, no straight road in this world. Only a giant labyrinth of intersecting crossroads.”  Federico García Lorca

”Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.”  Antonio Machado