This painting—like much of Vivian Suter’s work—is a document not only of the artist’s hand, but of the natural environment surrounding her as she creates. Working in and around her studio and home in Panajachel, Guatemala, Suter integrates variables like rain, mud, sunlight, humidity, leaves, sticks, wind, and fish glue into her paintings. Sometimes this includes the consequences of catastrophic storms. As she moves her canvases back and forth from indoors to outdoors, she invites her dogs to participate in her artmaking process by sitting on paintings, walking across them, pawing them, or just playing nearby.

---