
Vivian Suter
Vivian Suter (b. 1949, Buenos Aires, Argentina) lives and works in Panajachel, Guatemala. Over thirty years Suter has been living and working on a former coffee plantage in the remote village of Panajachel, Guatemala. Painted en plein air, Suter’s sprawling abstract paintings capture the pulsating lush garden and the landscapes surrounding it.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1949 to exiled European parents, Suter was later raised in Basel, Switzerland where she studied painting. Shortly after her first big group exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel In 1981, she left Europe for Guatemala where she has lived since. Suter’s pieces, painted on stretched manta and exhibited unstretched, remain untitled and not categorized by a year. Traces of rain, mud, leaves and paw prints ad to the organic, lively quality of the paintings which are quietly yet relentlessly documenting ephemeral moments of energy in nature. These ideas are intensified in the presentation of the works, often overlapping, suspended and moving in the wind Suters installations capture the ecosystem and spirit of her surroundings.
Alongside her mother, Austrian artist Elisabeth Wild, who lived with her in Guatemala in the past years until her death, Suter exhibited at documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens. She has had solo exhibitions at the Tate Liverpool, ICA Boston, Camden Art Centre, London, Jewish Museum, New York was featured in the 11th Taipei Biennial, Taiwan, on the High Line, New York, as well as in group shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museo Tamayo, Mexico, amongst others.
INSTALLATIONS VIEWS
VIDEOS
PRESS
ArtReview
December 2019
The Art Newspaper
December 2019
The New York Times
April 2019
Documenta 14
March 2018