Susan Landesmann
- Jan 27
- 2 min read
Susan Landesmann is a Vienna-born artist based in Malibu, working with acrylic, handmade paper, and fabric on canvas. Trained in graphic design, she spent many years as a creative director before shifting fully to studio work. Her paintings bring the female figure into structured, color-driven spaces, using collage, clean geometry, and layered surfaces drawn from both design and painting.
Q: What led you to bring the female body into your work after so many years of focusing on geometric abstraction?
A: For years I explored how color and shape interact, and that visual language still anchors everything I do. Over time I felt drawn toward something more emotional and direct. Bringing the female body into my work happened gradually because it allowed me to express structure and form through lived experience rather than pure abstraction.
Q: When you think about aging, memory, and interior emotion, which of these themes feels most present while you’re painting?
A: Aging feels the most present. I’m 56 and becoming more aware of how my own body changes over time, so the work comes from lived experience rather than theory. I think about what women carry inside themselves—the strength, the vulnerability, the loneliness, and also the freedom that can come with age—and that energy often guides the painting.
Q: What draws you to place your figures in spaces that feel part architecture, part dreamscape?
A: My design background naturally influences how I build space. I’m drawn to clean lines, grids, and simple structures. When I began working with the figure, those elements stayed, creating settings that feel both grounded and imagined. They offer the figure a quiet place to exist without defining the narrative too literally.
Q: How do you choose the fabrics, papers, or textures that become part of a composition?
A: I choose them by instinct. I collect handmade papers, old prints, and bits of found fabric. I’m drawn to textures that feel worn or imperfect because they bring history into the work and add a tactile layer that contrasts with the more precise shapes in the composition.
Q: How do ideas like solitude, resilience, or personal history shape the way a piece begins to form?
A: Most pieces begin from a feeling rather than a plan. I think about quiet moments or memories that sit close to the surface, and I let that guide the early marks. These ideas show up in the posture of the figure, the colors I reach for, or the kind of space I build around her.
Q: What are you focusing on in the studio right now in Malibu?
A: Right now I’m working on a cohesive figurative series that places women in simple architectural spaces. I’m painting mostly in acrylic and also continuing to develop my abstract collage work, letting each approach influence the other.
