Vivian Suter is a Swiss-Argentinian artist based in Panajachel, Guatemala. Recognised for her colourful paintings that depict the tropical Guatemalan landscape, Suter physically integrates her environment into her practice, often by exposing her works to the elements of the rainforest.
Read MoreBorn in Buenos Aires, Suter moved to Basel, Switzerland, at the age of 12. Her mother, Elisabeth Wild, was an Austrian collage artist who had a significant influence on Suter's early interest in art.
Suter graduated from Kunstgewerbeschule Basel in 1972, after which she exhibited in several group exhibitions in Europe. In 1982, Suter travelled to Guatemala. She settled in Panajachel upon buying a former coffee plantation, where she established her home and studio.
Suter's early paintings often featured geometric patterns, deploying heavy brushstrokes to create precise abstractions. However, Hurricane Stan in 2005 facilitated a shift in her approach. Causing extensive damage to her studio and paintings, the hurricane prompted Suter to reconfigure her practice. While initially attempting to clean her ruined canvases, Suter soon saw the potential for incorporating the elements of her environment into her painting process.
The artist began to actively make use of local natural elements and materials in her paintings, including volcanic rock, soot, rainforest flora, rainwater, and microorganisms. This approach saw an acceptance of the power of nature and the environment which governed Suter's lifestyle, while also encouraging an often improvised, fast-paced painting technique.
Suter's Nisyros (Vivian's bed) (2016–17) is an installation comprising three large-scale paintings on unstretched, untreated canvas. The colourful abstract compositions are made up of loose, gestural brushstrokes.
For this series, Suter purposefully left her canvases outdoors to allow them to absorb the elements of Panajachel. Each painting features pigments and oils mixed with rainwater, and marks are also made with materials such as mud. Nisyros (Vivian's bed) represents a visual documentation of Suter's observations, as well as the everyday movements and conditions of the Guatemalan environment.
Nisyros (Vivian's bed) was first shown at documenta 14 in Kassel, within the Glass Pavilion on Kurt-Schumacher Strasse. The work was titled after the Greek island of Nisyros, where the artist created several other works of the same title for the Athens iteration of documenta. For documenta 14, Suter displayed the installation with a bed at its centre, accompanied by two unstretched canvases representing a bedsheet and a rug, hence the subtitle Vivian's bed.
In 2021, Suter was awarded the Swiss Grand Award for Art | Prix Meret Oppenheim by the Federal Office of Culture.
Vivian Suter has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Solo exhibitions include Vivian Suter, Gladstone Gallery, Seoul (2022); Karma International, Zurich (2022); Worm in a Water Glass, Vleeshal, Middelburg (2022); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2021); Vivian Suter: Tintin's Sofa, Camden Arts Centre, London (2020); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2019); La Canícula (with Elisabeth Wild), The Power Plant, Toronto (2018); Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Vivian Suter, Jewish Museum, New York (2017).
Group exhibitions include Tomorrow is the Question, Gladstone Gallery, Gallery Weekend Beijing (2022); Sensory Poetics: Collecting Abstraction, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2022); What is Left Unspoken, Love, High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2022); Breathing one's breath, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles (2021); En Plein Air, High Line, New York (2019).
Vivian Suter is represented by Gladstone Gallery.
Vivian Suter's website can be found here.
Phoebe Bradford | Ocula | 2022
