VIVIAN SUTER

Since the 1980’s, the artist’s home and studio has been based in the lush climate of the Guatemalan lowlands. Suter’s paintings abstractly recall the natural forms and environmental stimuli that surround her through gestural references of mountain peaks, water bodies, trees, wind, and the sun. Further embracing a physical embodiment of nature within her works, eroded soil, plant matter, rainwater, and signs of animal life find a second home on the surfaces of her untreated canvases. The artist’s admittance of natural phenomena into her oeuvre disrupts a material hierarchy and places the components of her studio on equal footing with the biological world.

Expanding upon Suter’s investigation of using the painted medium to create surreal three-dimensional spaces, this installation employs the gallery’s modern architecture to transpose elements of her tropical studio onto the gallery. The unique installation of unstretched canvases activate the gallery’s walls, floor, and ceiling, transforming the exhibition space into an interconnected painterly biome. While each piece is conceived of individually, the placement of the works over, alongside, across, and underneath one another creates compositions that continually and infinitely discover new relevance and importance within Suter’s work. This permission for recontextualization similarly democratizes the artist’s work for viewers, allowing for different permutations and transformations with each new immersive installation.