For over a decade, Onodera worked in the art departments of LucasArts and Electronic Arts, envisioning and realizing fantas;cal environments for video games set in the Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond and Lord of the Rings universes. In 2004, she left the digital game industry, returning her focus to fine art.
She has been a practicing, full-time studio painter since 2004, cultivating relationships with galleries, designers and commissioned work for private clients on both coasts. Over the last 25 years, Onodera has worked professionally with galleries.
Onodera was born in Berkeley, California. She holds a BFA in painting at the California College of the Arts, and attended the School of The Art Institute in Chicago for painting. Artist Residencies include Millay Arts, NY, Caldera, Deschutes National Forest, OR, Virginia Center for Crea;ve Arts (VCCA), Vermont Studio Center (VSC), Brush Creek in WY and Acadia National Park, ME. She has been awarded grants from New York Founda;on for the Arts (NYFA); National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. Suzanne is a SF/Bay Area native. After living on the east coast for 16 years, Suzanne recently returned to the Bay Area in 2025. Her studio is located in Berkeley, CA.
"I use the physicality of paint, color and gesture to create multi-layered lush landscape abstrac;ons drawn from my observatons and experiences in nature. Bridging the abstract and the realistic, they are a sublime floatng world, simultaneously chaotc and unsettled, exalted and sublime. Always present in the work is beauty, mystery and ambiguity." - Suzanne Onodera