Vivian Suter “Tintin, Nina & Disco”
Gladstone Gallery (130 E 64th St.)
[Image: Vivian Suter "Untitled" (Undated) Mixed media on canvas, 67 x 64 1/2 in]
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Gladstone Gallery presents Vivian Suter: Tintin, Nina & Disco, an exhibition of exclusively mixed media paintings from the artist’s decades-long career. This presentation is emblematic of Suter’s singular style of installation, in which painted canvases flood the gallery space, welcoming viewers into the artist’s cosmos. Suter’s work draws inspiration from Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, and most significantly, the natural environment.
Since the 1980s, the artist’s home and studio has been based in the lush climate of the Guatemalan lowlands. Suter’s paintings abstractly recall the natural forms and environmental stimuli that surround her through gestural references of mountain peaks, water bodies, trees, wind, and the sun. Further embracing a physical embodiment of nature within her works, eroded soil, plant matter, rainwater, and signs of animal life find a second home on the surfaces of her untreated canvases. The artist’s admittance of natural phenomena into her oeuvre disrupts a material hierarchy and places the components of her studio on equal footing with the biological world.
Expanding upon Suter’s investigation of using the painted medium to create surreal three-dimensional spaces, this installation employs the gallery’s modern architecture to transpose elements of her tropical studio onto the gallery. The unique installation of unstretched canvases activate the gallery’s walls, floor, and ceiling, transforming the exhibition space into an interconnected painterly biome. While each piece is conceived of individually, the placement of the works over, alongside, across, and underneath one another creates compositions that continually and infinitely discover new relevance and importance within Suter’s work. This permission for recontextualization similarly democratizes the artist’s work for viewers, allowing for different permutations and transformations with each new immersive installation.
Media
Schedule
from September 19, 2023 to November 04, 2023
Opening Reception on 2023-09-19 from 18:00 to 20:00