Susanne Forestieri
Date of Birth: April 22, 1945
Media: Oil, acrylic, water colors
Affiliation: Ryan Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
Susanne was the winner of the prestigious 1996 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in painting. As an NEA fellowship winner she is represented in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art
In 2003 Ms. Forestieri had her first museum exhibition entitled Revealing Women at the Las Vegas Art Museum.
In 2005 her work was selected for the Expressions West exhibition at the Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon and won an Honorable Mention.
Her figurative paintings have been shown at the National Academy Museum and the American Museum of Illustration in New York City, and reproduced in the Society of Illustrators' 28th Annual (1985).
I n 2005 Ms. Forestieri was selected to represent Las Vegas for the 100th anniversary of the city’s founding with an exhibition entitled Moving Pictures shown at the city’s Charleston Heights Art Center. In addition, as part of the Centennial she was selected to paint two public art pieces as part of the 100 Murals Project.
Ms. Forestieri’s paintings are in the collection of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino and the Girl Scouts of America headquarters in Las Vegas and McCarran International Airport.
A portrait of her parents, entitled "Wish You Were Here," was selected by Philip Pearlstein for the exhibition Contemporary Portraits from the Northeast in New Haven, Connecticut (1987).
In 2007 Ms. Forestieri exhibited her Film Noir Series of large charcoal drawings at the Trifecta Gallery in Las Vegas and in 2008 her charcoal interpretations of Edward Curtis’s classic American Indians portraits were shown at the Goldwell Museum in Beatty, Nevada.
Her portrait of United States Senator Harry Reid was commissioned for the Harry Reid Elementary School in Searchlight, Nevada.
In 2002 she was awarded for Achievement in the Arts by the Las Vegas Clark County Library District.
Ms. Forestieri is represented by the Ryan Gallery in Las Vegas.
Ms. Forestieri writes a bi-weekly art review column for the Las Vegas Weekly and is featured in the 2005 Sept.issue of the Artist’s Magazine, Nov. issue of Southwest Art, the 2006 June/July issue of International Artist magazine, and the Dec. 2005 issue of Las Vegas Home & Design.
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Artist Statement
 The small figurative paintings that I've created over the last decade began with a series I began in 1995. They are based on photographs that I took more than twenty years ago of my daughter and her friends while they were playing dress-up. Playing dress-up in childhood is familiar to everyone, but filtered through memory it gains an enigmatic and mysterious quality.
The loss of something precious is the source of their poignancy. The small scale, juicy handling of paint, and jewel-like colors are intended to evoke precious moments long past.
My work gradually evolved from painting depictions of children's fantasy play to painting everyday, intimate moments in people's lives when they reveal something about themselves that is real and precious. Small gestures and facial expressions reveal individuality. Pictorial spaces between and around figures describe emotional relationships as well as individual isolation. Each painting depicts a small drama that leaves something to the imagination of the viewer.
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