Susan Tonkin Riegel
Susan Tonkin Riegel is a visual artist and educator whose work explores intuition, memory, and mark-making through collage, mixed media, and print-based processes. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied with Bay Area figurative painters Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown, and a Master of Arts degree in Studio Art from California State University, Sacramento.
Riegel has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, including France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, China, Mexico, and Canada. Her work has been shown at institutions and galleries such as the de Young Museum (San Francisco), the Copelouzos Family Art Museum (Athens), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento), and Pence Gallery (Davis).
She has participated in prestigious artist residencies including the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Villa Sträuli (Switzerland), Konstepidemin (Gothenburg, Sweden), Red Gate Residency (Beijing), Leveld Konstartun (Norway), and La Porte Peinte Centre pour les Arts (France). In addition to her studio practice, Riegel has served as a faculty artist and workshop facilitator for decades, guiding artists in both technical refinement and intuitive creative development.
Her work has been featured in publications including The Sacramento Bee, SF Gate, Kolaj Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, Inside Publications, and Sactown Magazine. Through her teaching, Susan Tonkin Riegel creates immersive learning environments that balance disciplined fine-art practice with personal exploration, encouraging artists to reconnect with their creative voice through process, material engagement, and sustained inquiry.