bio

Susanna Cicerone is a visual artist based in Portland, Oregon, working primarily in painting and sculpture. Born in Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country to two accomplished artists, she was raised in an environment where creativity wasn’t just encouraged it was essential. From an early age, she was given space to explore art freely, and that early foundation continues to shape her practice today.

Her heritage, rooted in Southern Italy and rural Sweden adds another layer to her work, weaving in themes of ancestry, cultural memory, and identity. Her paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Italy to New York, while her maternal great-grandparents immigrated from Sweden to Montana. 

Driven by a deep love of nature, Susanna has lived and worked in several national parks across the western United States, including Death Valley (CA), Denali (AK), and Glacier Bay (MT). These landscapes profoundly impacted her visual language, drawing her toward organic forms, expansive dreamlike environments, and the intersection between the natural and the surreal.

She holds a B.S.in Art Practices from Portland State University, blending scientific curiosity with creative expression. Early in her artistic career, Susanna faced the devastating loss of both her parents within the span of a year. That period of grief made it difficult to access her creativity, but the birth of her son marked a turning point. His presence reignited her artistic drive and she returned to her work with new depth and urgency, reawakening her commitment to meaningful, emotionally resonant art making.

Susanna’s work often resembling cinematic dreamscapes, emotionally layered, and tinged with surrealism. Raised in the Catholic tradition, she often revisits Catholic iconography and mythos through a personal, often reimagined lens. These spiritual and symbolic elements intersect with stories from her upbringing, and generational stories of immigration, particularly her father’s experience as a second-generation Italian-American which come together in works like Il Problema Italiano, a large-scale piece that explores the complexities of cultural identity.

She finds inspiration as much in cinema as in fine art, having grown up without regular access to galleries or museums. Her mother, raised in Southern California, instilled in her a love of movies and storytelling—something that continues to influence Susanna’s visual sensibilities. While nothing compares to seeing a work of art like René Magritte’s The Banquet in person (a painting she directly references in her own piece Solitaire), Susanna also draws energy and ideas from the compositions, colors, and moods crafted by directors she admires.

Her work is ultimately a reflection of layered experiences: personal loss and rebirth, inherited memory, natural landscapes, spiritual symbolism, and the stories we carry in both our bodies and imaginations.