TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

Vivian Suter

Vivian Suter (b. 1949, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a Swiss-Argentine artist renowned for her expansive, immersive installations composed of unstretched, large-scale canvases that often hang freely in space. Her work is deeply informed by the natural environment of Panajachel, Guatemala, where she has lived and worked since the early 1980s, after relocating from Basel. Suter’s paintings—created in the open air and frequently exposed to the elements—carry the marks of their surroundings: rain, mud, wind, leaves, and animal traces are not seen as accidents but integral parts of the work.

Her practice is a collaboration with nature, embracing the unpredictability and imperfection of organic processes. This ecological approach, combined with her use of vibrant color and gestural abstraction, places her at the intersection of post-minimalist painting and environmental art. The influence of her mother, artist Elisabeth Wild, with whom she shared a lifelong creative dialogue, also reverberates through her work.

Although long working in relative obscurity, Suter’s practice gained renewed international recognition in the 2010s, following her rediscovery by curator Adam Szymczyk. She has since exhibited widely, including solo shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston, Camden Arts Centre in London, Kunsthalle Basel, Secession Vienna, and Tate Liverpool, among others. Her work has also featured in major group exhibitions such as documenta 14 and the São Paulo Biennial.

Vivian Suter’s art invites viewers into a sensory and contemplative experience—one that blurs the boundaries between painting, landscape, and lived environment, insisting on an ethics of entanglement with the more-than-human world.

More about the artist and her artistic practice: http://viviansuter.com

Related works in the collection

Vivian Suter
Untitled, n.d. Untitled, n.d. Untitled, n.d.

Related program

The Ecologies of Peace

The Ecologies of Peace II Exhibition