Susanna Piccarreta
Artist Statement
I am a Swiss-based artist and craftswoman working at the intersection of botanical imagery, textile, and traditional craft techniques. My practice is rooted in a deep love for nature, especially the plant world, and an ongoing inquiry into gender roles and what it means to inhabit a female-coded body.
Using techniques of traditional convent crafts and wirework, I create floral and botanical objects from discarded everyday materials conventionally coded as feminine – such as shopping bags and tea towels. These objects become the starting point for photographic processes, including analog photography, and their transfer onto paper, textiles and other materials. Through resource-conscious methods, I explore cycles of growth and decay, relating them to human mortality and the cyclical nature of the female body.
I hold a Diploma in Arts and Crafts from the School of Design Graubünden (ibW), CH, a background as co-owner and wigmaker at Haarwerkstatt Basel, and I have worked with hair and textiles as material since 2013. My work evolves into personal herbaria and spatial installations that create space for both humorous and critical reflections on social norms, conventions, and structures.
Portfolio
Becoming and Passing Away
Mixed media: bronze, sgraffito, photo, watercolor, ceramic, collage, stitching • 2026
Flower (Dyptych)
Fiber: reclaimed textiles/plastic/paper/metal, wire, hand stitching, photo • 2026
$1500
de-constructed botanicas: Disocactus ackermanii, Lolium perenne inventre (Dyptych)
Mixed-media textile collage with photographic prints, paper elements, and hand stitching • 2026
$800
Deutzia scabra ab arte spectaculi (front side))
Wire work on canvas. Found, given and discarded materials. • 2026
$800
Deutzia scabra ab arte spectaculi (back side)
Analog photographic print • 2026
$800
Rosa cepa canina Tergestina (front side)
Wire work on canvas. Found, given and discarded materials. • 2025
$800
Rosa cepa canina Tergestina (back side)
Analog photographic print • 2025
$800
Lolium perenne inventre (front side)
Wire work on canvas. Found, given and discarded materials. • 2025
$800
Lolium perenne inventre (back side)
Analog photographic print • 2025
$800
Viola nuda orientalem - traces (diptych)
Analog photographic prints, found frame • 2026
$600