LONDON.- This is the first London exhibition of work by the Argentine-Swiss artist Vivian Suter (b. 1949, Buenos Aires), which fills
Camden Arts Centre’s galleries with her delicate but powerful paintings, inspired by the Guatemalan rainforest. Suter presents works as an immersive cacophony which mirrors the canopy of the rainforest: suspended, draped, overlapping and organic.
The artist has also made a new body of works specially for Camden Arts Centre’s garden. Transferred from the rainforest in which they were conceived, to hang in London’s wintery landscape, the works evolve throughout the exhibition, becoming memories of the environment they have inhabited.
Born in Buenos Aires, Suter spent her childhood in Switzerland before moving to Panajachel, Guatemala in 1982, setting up her home and studio in the midst of the jungle, beside the volcanic lake Atitlán. Drawing inspiration from the lush plants, vibrant flowers, tropical birds and constantly changing weather of this tropical habitat, her mixed media abstract paintings evoke the living energy of the forest: large, unstretched canvases are swathed in colour, gestural brushstrokes and organic motifs.
In 2005, a tropical storm destroyed large parts of Panajachel and flooded Suter’s studio. Rather than seeing damage in the canvases, which were caked in mud and stained with water marks, Suter saw her work developing in response to, and in harmony with, its environment. Since then, she has embraced the unpredictability of her adopted home, actively encouraging the intrusion of the elements into her practice. Working between open-air studios and spaces, her unprimed canvases are hung outdoors to absorb the traces of falling leaves, rain water, dirt and passing animals, imprinting on their surface the daily life of the forest.
Composed individually but hung collectively, one canvas reveals the next, creating an ethereal record of the passage of time and forming a permeable membrane between nature and civilisation. Removed from the tropical setting in which they were conceived, the paintings bear witness to their unique environment at a time of renewed focus on this vital but increasingly vulnerable ecological resource. Transported to the UK, they will sit in dialogue with the very different atmosphere of Camden Arts Centre’s galleries and garden, assembled in London’s cold winter light.
The exhibition provides a timely and exciting opportunity to encounter Suter’s work at a moment of renewed international interest – her installation Nisyros (Vivian’s Bed) (2016–17) will be on display at Tate Liverpool in December 2019; and a major new commission for Art on the Underground will open at Stratford in summer 2020, followed by a retrospective exhibition at Reina Sofía, Madrid, in the winter of 2020.
Vivian Suter has been featured in solo and group exhibitions around the world, including Vivian Suter: el bosque interior, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2018-19; La Canícula, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, 2018; Lala Mountain - Panajachel, 11th Taipei Biennial, 2018; Documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, 2017; The Wind, The Rain, The Volcanoes, The Jewish Museum, NY, USA (2017); Lejos, House of Gaga, Mexico City, Mexico (2015); Intrépida, Featuring Elisabeth Wild Fantasías, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2014; Bienal de São Paulo, 2014.
