Susan Arena

www.susanarena.com
Biography

Susan Arena was born in a small town by the ocean in Massachusetts, right next to Salem, the “witch city”. Arena’s work in painting and drawing has been exhibited extensively and has been widely collected. She earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art and studied figurative painting at the New York Studio School.

She graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in Visual and Environmental Studies and upon graduating was awarded a traveling fellowship, allowing her to live and paint in Cairo, Egypt. She also was awarded a grant from Yale School of Art allowing her to study women’s folk painting in rural India. Susan’s work in painting is largely influenced by her love of these and other cultures and their art and customs.

Arena has lived and worked in New York City and taught drawing and painting at numerous institutions there. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 and now lives and paints in a 100 year old house near the freeway with her husband, 2 children, and one dog. The work in her show was inspired by and created in Los Angeles, her new home, and the city that still feels to Arena like a tropical garden and wild Western frontier.