Susana Villa is a Madrid-born, New York–based visual artist whose practice explores identity as a stratified and evolving process shaped by experience, displacement, and social conditioning. Working through layered compositions, her work examines how the subject is constructed and transformed over time.
Her work centers on the female figure as a site where social expectations and strategies of self-protection are inscribed, negotiating the relationship between visibility and vulnerability. The notion of the layer operates both conceptually and materially, functioning as both a record and a mask.
Villa trained in painting at the Escuela Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales in Madrid and later studied at the New York Academy of Art. Her early work, rooted in Spanish Informalism and the legacy of Grupo El Paso, emphasized materiality, gesture, and formal economy, later evolving toward a more expressive figurative language.
Her relocation from Spain to New York introduced new tensions into her practice, intensifying color and fragmenting the figure, reflecting the instability of identity within shifting cultural contexts. She works primarily with oil, incorporating scraping, chance, and layered materials in an accumulative process in which the surface retains the memory of its making.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in Japan, Spain, and the United States. In Spain, she has presented work at the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM) in Barcelona and at MAC Florencio de la Fuente in Cuenca, where she completed an artist residency and her work entered the museum’s permanent collection, as well as in Madrid. In the United States, she has exhibited at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM) in New York. Her work has also been featured during Miami Art Week 2025 and selected by Visionary Projects for display across New York public transit stations. Most recently, her work has been included in WAAM’s 2026 exhibition program.
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SUSANA VILLA
Madrid-born, Brooklyn-based, New York
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EDUCATION
2015 — Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing), New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2001 — Escuela Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales ((ESCRBC), specialization in Painting, Madrid, Spain
1996 — Interior Design, CENP, Madrid, Spain
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ADDITIONAL TRAINING
2026 — Portfolio & Self-Management Program with Catalina Restrepo
2026 — Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism with Gonzalo Ortega
2025 — Artist Advisory with Andrea Freeman
2023 — Portrait Workshop with Eloy Morales, Madrid, Spain
2000 — Symposium “Goya: Restoration of Masterpieces”, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain
1997 — Architekt Academy, Drawing Studies, Madrid, Spain
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2012 — Guilles Larrain Art Gallery, New York, NY
2000 — Concepto Gallery, Madrid, Spain
2000 — Cultural Center de Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 — Waxworks (Annual Exhibition), Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM), Woodstock, NY
2025 —
— Aqua Art Miami, Irreversible Projects, Miami, FL
— 21st Annual Small Works (juried by Yara Doumani), 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
— The Whale Building Collective, Brooklyn, NY
— SPOS Community Show, District 38 City Council Office, Brooklyn, NY
— Espacio Jovellanos (curated by MEAM), Madrid, Spain
— The MEAM Hall, Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM), Barcelona, Spain
— West Village Salon, Visionary Projects, New York, NY
— A Whisper 2 A Scream - Healing Through the Arts (curated by Sergio Gómez),
Oh Art Foundation at Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL
— New York City Public Art Program, Visionary Projects, New York City Subway, New York, NY
2024 —
— Ellas (curated by Surfergirl Gallery), Instituto Cultural de México, Miami, FL
— Women’s Voices, Miami Dade College Gallery, Miami, FL
2023 —
— The Art of Leaving a Mark, Miami Dade College Gallery, Miami, FL
— B Dry Goods Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
— These Days, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Woodstock, NY
2021 — Estampa Art Fair, Espacio Mados (curated by Álvaro Alcázar), Madrid, Spain
2017 —
— Hope for the Holidays, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ
— Mera Coincidencia (curated by Rubén Polanco), Fuente Olmedo, Valladolid, Spain
— Esto No Se Come: Homage to Magritte, Factoría Cultural Martinez, Barcelona, Spain
2016 —
— LIC, Plaxall Gallery, Queens, NY
— Women Together Awards Art Auction, United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY
2015–2017 — New York Art, Hankyu Umeda Gallery, Osaka, Japan
2015 —
— Small Works, Pleiades Gallery, New York, NY
— Black & White Show, One Art Space, New York, NY
2001-2002— Artists Around the World, Power International Gallery, Miami, FL
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AWARDS
2023 — Painting Award, Miami Dade College, Miami, FL
2001 — Coronado Art Award (jury included: Antonio López García), Madrid, Spain
2000 — Castellana Painting Grant, Castellana Subastas, Madrid, Spain
1999 — Young Painters Award, Foro Cívico Cultural Pozuelo de Alarcón (jury included Juan Genovés), Madrid, Spain
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RESIDENCIES
2025 — VI Artist Residency, MAC Florencio de la Fuente, Cuenca, Spain
2021 — ChaShaMa Visual Arts Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY
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SELECTED PRESS
December 2024 — Doral Voice Radio, Interview: “Figurative Abstraction and Symbolism”, Doral Art and Beyond, Miami, FL
December 2024 — Art Miami Magazine, The Emotional Depth of Susana Villa’s Painted Worlds, (p. 28), Miami, FL
November 2024 — EIN Presswire, News Channel 8, “Ellas: Mexican and Spanish Art by Women Trailblazers in America," Miami, FL
October 2024 — Artburst / El Nuevo Herald, “Women’s Voices: A Different Exhibition with a Global Perspective," Miami, FL
June 2023 — Artburst, “The Art of Leaving a Mark: Art and Excellence by MDCH and Irreversible Projects,” Miami, FL
2023 — The Art of Leaving a Mark (exhibition catalog)
August 2017 — TV News Castilla y León, Interview: "Mera Coincidencia" exhibition, Castilla y León, Spain
July 2017 — Diario de Valladolid (El Mundo), “Artist Attracted to the Territory as a Seed”, Valladolid, Spain
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COLLECTIONS
MAC Florencio de la Fuente, Cuenca, Spain
Government Palace, Segovia, Spain
ChaShaMa Foundation, New York, NY
Irreversible Projects, Miami, FL