Susanne Schwieter

I work with images that have already existed—circulated, stored, and transformed.
Often sourced from platforms like Google, they serve as starting points that I translate into painting and sculpture.

In this process, the original image dissolves. What remains are fragments—pixels, gestures, silhouettes—that reappear across works and media. My practice follows how images shift: from material to image, from image to memory, from surface to object. I am interested in what persists, what fades, and how meaning is altered through translation.

I approach painting as a time-based medium—shaped by my background in stage design and an ongoing interest in movement, transformation, and the possibility of exceeding fixed forms.

Two recent bodies of work have been central to my practice:

Cruiser originates from a Google image of a marble block in Carrara that I once used as reference material for sculpture. Over time, the image has been repeatedly reworked and carried from one piece to another. Its original pixels continue to circulate within the paintings—fragments that migrate across works, becoming image, memory, and material simultaneously.

Choreo is an ongoing series that began in 2024. The works are connected like branches of a family tree. Through processes of copying, translating, and repeating gestures or silhouettes, I explore how a physical identity can emerge through movement. In this sense, I consider the Choreo images a form of portrait.

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Berlin, March 2026