Susan Maakestad is a Memphis-based painter. She was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Art fellowship from Arts Midwest in 1988. She is the recipient of the 2013 ArtsAccelerator Grant from ArtsMemphis, purchase awards from the UrbanArts Commission in Memphis and three individual artist grants from the Peoria Area Arts and Sciences Council. In late 2021 she completed a large scale public art commission at Memphis International Airport. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. Her work has been included in the national publication New American Paintings and The Painting Center in New York's online Art File. Her watercolors are included in The Drawing Center in New York’s online Viewing Program. Her work has been exhibited nationally including at Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis; Sazama Gallery, Chicago; Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill; The Rymer Gallery, Nashville; and The Rockford (IL) Art Museum. Public collections include the Tennessee State Museum, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the City of Memphis. She is currently represented by Spalding Nix Fine Art in Atlanta.

Susan Maakestad was Professor of Art at Memphis College of Art where she taught from 1997-2020. Since 2020 she has taught watercolor workshops at Peninsula School of Art, Fish Creek, WI and in Shelby County for Creative Aging Memphis. She presented lectures about her work to graduate students at Delta State University in Cleveland, MS, the Dixon Gallery and Gardens and to several Memphis area art clubs. She juried the 2024 student art show at Delta State and the Artists Link annual show in Memphis in 2023.

She earned her M.F.A. in painting from The University of Iowa in 1987 and a B.A., magna cum laude, and M.A. from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA.