How This Artist Turns Stage Performance into Painting

For this week’s feature on the Arts to Hearts Project website, we sat down with Colombian artist and stage performer Susana Gomez Laverde, who now calls New York home. With a background in both stage performance and visual arts, Susana brings a stage-like sensibility to her paintings, creating scenes that feel suspended in time.

In this conversation, she talks about how theatre has shaped her perspective as a painter, why she continues to see life itself as a stage, and the way she balances careful planning with spontaneous choices when working on canvas. Through the interview, Susana shares how she approaches painting much like directing a play—considering composition, gesture, and interaction between figures—while letting colour lead the emotional tone.

She discusses her fascination with theatrical stories, masks, and heightened gestures, and how living in New York has expanded her sense of freedom as an artist. What we learn from her is not just how theatre and painting intersect in her practice, but also how she uses both forms to explore the shared stories and connections that make us human.

Susana Gomez Laverde is a featured artist in our book, “100 Emerging Artists 2025” You can explore her journey and the stories of other artists by purchasing the book here:

https://shop.artstoheartsproject.com/products/the-creative-process-book

Susana is a Colombian artist and performer, currently based in New York. Her lifelong passions for theatre and visual arts have been a collaborative source of inspiration for Susana, who owes her perspective as a painter to the theatre, and conversely her perspective as an actor to the visual arts.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” from ‘As you like it’ by William Shakespeare In her paintings, Susana creates theatrical renderings that seek to celebrate humans as storytellers, as well as their innate inclination to create stories as a way to understand the world around them and express that of their own. Her goal is to convey heightened emotions through human life as a stage. Through vivid colours and visible brushstrokes, she wishes to emphasise the constant motion of feelings, desires, and needs within ourselves; fickle, ever-changing, and moment to moment. Her art and her paintings celebrate and emphasise the ephemerality and constant motion of thoughts and emotions in human beings.

1.       How has your background in theatre shaped the way you approach painting?  

I like to approach painting as what is known in the theatre as a tableau– a group of motionless figures representing a moment in a story; arrested figures frozen in time in the midst of all their drama and passions. Studying theatre and performing arts has helped me appreciate the liveliness in those tableaus, how even in stillness there is so much motion underneath, and to translate that into everyday life– how every second is filled with humanity; passions, desires, and conflict. I like to think of my paintings as a moment arrested in time, frozen for viewers to enjoy all the life inside a specific moment.

2.    You describe life as a stage—what draws you to that idea again and again in your work?  

What draws me to that idea is the same that draws me to the stage. Experiencing theatre, whether it is in the audience or from the stage, reminds me that I’m alive; it reminds me what it’s like to be a human being in this world full of human beings, bustling with life, happiness, and tragedy. In today’s age, it is far too easy to get caught up in one’s own story, and we easily forget how connected we are to each other. Theatre makes me feel connected with the world and my own humanity. We are all filled with stories, whether they are our own or not, and in that way I see life as a stage. My goal is to catch a little bit of that in my paintings.

3.    Can you walk us through how you translate an emotion or moment into a visual scene?  

When I think of a painting, I like to think of it as putting on my director’s hat. I envision a story in my head as a scene and ask myself how I’d like to see this story play out onstage. This is what draws me to a more figurative style, allowing me to stage people and/or objects as if I were capturing a moment in a play.

I like to think of my paintings as a moment arrested in time, frozen for viewers to enjoy all the life inside a specific moment.

Susana Gomez Laverde

4. How do you balance spontaneity and structure when painting scenes that feel so alive?  

I like to work with a little bit of both when I paint. When it comes to the structure of the painting, the figures, poses, and how they interact with each other, there is a bit more rigidity. I like to sketch my figures multiple times to ensure I’m particular about what I will be putting on the canvas. Spontaneity comes to me in colours, and how they will dictate the mood of the scene I’m painting. Once I’m bringing the structured sketch onto the canvas, I let the colours dictate the brushstrokes and what mood they get to the painting.

As long as it comes from a truthful place within me, someone else in the world will find it truthful as well and resonate with it.

Susana Gomez Laverde

5.   In both painting and acting, stories play a significant role—what kinds of stories are you drawn to telling?   

I’m usually drawn to over-the-top theatrical stories; colourful costumes, masks, odd physicalities. Perhaps it is not so much the type of story but more so an aesthetic; I simply enjoy vibrant stories that seem a little removed from the casualness of today.

6.  How has living in New York influenced the energy or themes in your recent work? 

It often reinvigorates me in many ways. Being surrounded by so much art and culture, as well as getting the privilege of hearing so many different voices and visions, is deeply inspiring. It has taken the pressure off of trying to make “perfect art”, and has given me instead a mentality of simply doing art that resonates with myself. As long as it comes from a truthful place within me, someone else in the world will find it truthful as well and resonate with it.

Susana Gomez Laverde’s work shows us how theatre and painting can intertwine to capture the constant movement of human emotions. Her canvases are like tableaus, holding a moment still while hinting at the stories and tensions alive beneath the surface.

From her, we learn that painting, much like performance, is a way to stage life’s fleeting moments, allowing us to pause and see the shared stories that connect us. Her journey reminds us how creative practices from different worlds can meet to shape a fresh way of seeing.

To learn more about Susana, click the following links to visit her profile.

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