Her physically demanding performances make use of repetitive motions and often last for many hours, sometimes reaching "a level of factual absurdity".

Born in Surakarta, she attended Padjadjaran University, graduating with a degree in international relations before moving to Germany.

Suryodarmo later returned to Indonesia and founded Undisclosed Territory, an annual festival for performance art.

[10] Following a chance meeting at the city's botanical gardens with Japanese Butoh choreographer Anzu Furukawa,[10] Suryodarmo developed an interest in performance art.

[1] Her use of repetitive motions in long performances creates meaning by stripping down movement and actions to their barest essentials.

[9] In a review of Suryodarmo's works, Michelle Antoinette wrote that her performance art is a "vehicle for coming to terms with conflicting aspects of her identity," particularly as a woman within the context of Indonesian culture and cross-culturally as a resident of both Germany and Indonesia.

[14] In a review for ArtAsiaPacific, Eva McGovern-Basa writes that Suryodarmo's long durational pieces often involve repetitive actions that "deal with physical restraint, resistance and transformation as well as the contemplation of carefully selected objects and environments that trigger poetic movement.

Suryodarmo enters to the sound of ceremonial Indonesian drumming that usually accompanies the Pakarena, a Bugis dance from Makassar, South Sulawesi.

[10][8] Wearing high-heeled shoes and a fitted black dress, she begins dancing, treading on 20 blocks of butter that have been arranged on the floor.

[10] The anticipation of each inevitable fall creates a tension for the audience, generating both sympathy and fascination at her perseverance despite the apparent futility of her actions.

In the article, Rachel Will wrote that the video turned Suryodarmo into "one of the most famous performance artists to come out of Indonesia.

"[7] In Suryodarmo's 2001 piece Lullaby for the Ancestors she repeatedly walks in a circle around a horse while cracking a whip then dunks her head in a bucket of water.

[7] The work is based on Jaran Kepang, a traditional Javanese dance where the dancers enter a trance and endure physical trials.

[8] In Suryodarmo's 2003 piece Alé Lino, she spends three hours leaning into a 4 m (13 ft) pole resting on her solar plexus.

Inspired by her research into the Bissu, an androgynous gender of the Bugis people, Alé Lino is an exploration of the "physicality of emptiness".

[10] In 2012, Suryodarmo created a photographic series influenced by Egon Schiele called The Acts of Indecency in 2012.

In the work, she exposes her legs and is dressed in a tutu, wearing torn stockings stuffed with either ping pong balls or nails.

[7] In Suryodarmo's two-hour 2013 work Dialogue With My Sleepless Tyrant, she lies down, sandwiched in the middle of tower of mattresses.