Produced on the occasion of Vivian Suter’s 2004 exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Olten.
More than thirty years ago the Swiss-Argentine artist Vivian Suter moved to the rain forest in Panajachel, Guatemala, to live on a former coffee plantation. Since then she has worked on her impressive paintings in her wooden-hut studio, as well as outdoors. Her canvases lie on the sandy ground or hang in trees; dust, mud, leaves, mangos, and insects leave their traces on them. Her painting is influenced by organic processes and coincidence—even natural disasters are her material, when flood waters make their mark on canvases, becoming part of her large, colourful paintings.