Elisabeth Östin in her studio, 2025 Photo: Kalle Lindmark

Artist on artist: Elisabeth Östin on Vivian Suter

Special guided tour with artist

10.4 2025

Malmö

Meet the artist Elisabeth Östin as she offers her perspectives on Vivian Suter’s artistry in a special guided tour, drawing parallels to her own creative process.

The Silent Source

Elisabeth Östin’s paintings are often described as organic, with motifs resembling close-ups of nerve fibers or details from the plant kingdom, such as thorns or stems. She uses the titles of her works to guide the viewer onto a path that she finds fitting. Sometimes, she refers to impossible anatomies, such as The Heart in the Wall”, “The Throat in the Trunk” or “The Tongue of the Shadow”. Östin is fascinated by the gap between spoken and painted language – a peculiar dimension that exists between what is expressed and what is perceived. One might describe it as obscurities or secrets. She highlights this gap in the title of her latest work, “The Silent Source”. The title is also inspired by how archaeological finds are often referred to as silent sources – images or objects that cannot speak but can reveal.

Traces of Nature

Elisabeth Östin is fascinated by how nature is an integral part of Vivian Suter’s work and how she more or less allows nature to take over, leaving traces and marks on her pieces. Some thoughts that Östin shares on Suter’s artistry:

I imagine how the tropical trees and bushes grow like long, grasping claws around her house and how the volcanoes Tolimán and Atitlán, hidden behind dense vegetation, contribute to an almost fateful presence. This presence seems to follow into the exhibition space, where her paintings are arranged in a way that makes them resemble trees or beings, and where the works together form a co-creative whole.

About Elisabeth Östin

Elisabeth Östin (b. 1989, Viken) lives and works in Arrie, outside Malmö. She earned her Master’s degree in 2019 from the Malmö Art Academy and has since exhibited at venues including Galleri Arnstedt, Östra Karup; Pumphuset Konsthall, Landskrona; Galleri Thomas Wallner, Simris; Ravinen Kulturhus, Norrviken; Public Support, Vestfossen, Norway; Galleri Rostrum, Malmö; Digitaliseum, Malmö; and the Museum of Sketches, Lund.

Her works are part of the collections of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, BUP in Lund, the Public Art Agency Sweden, Malmö Art Museum, Region Skåne, and Uppsala Municipality.

In 2020 and 2022, Östin was awarded the one-year working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, and in 2024, she received the Edstrand Foundation grant, which included a group exhibition at Galleri KHM2 in Malmö.

Elisabeth Östin in her outdoor studio, 2025 Photo: Kalle Lindmark