Susanne Reichling
Susanne Reichling wrote her dissertation on Jean-Michel Basquiat. Born in Germany, she briefly studied art in Stuttgart and switched to art history after a trip to Italy. Research grants took her to New York, where she stayed for twenty years, first as a curator and collection manager and later producing art and culture segments for the European TV channel Arte.
Then she developed trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic and very painful condition. Two brain surgeries failed, and she could no longer hold a regular job. She started painting and drawing right away, to distract herself from the pain.
After moving back to Germany, Reichling spent a year and a half in Spain, where she had her own studio. Today she paints in her small apartment, which she slowly turned into a studio. A conversation of more than half an hour can trigger severe pain, so her social life is limited. Painting is the one place where she doesn’t have to talk.
Her large paintings are fast and spontaneous, inspired by the automatic writing of the Surrealists, and her whole body moves with the work. She recently switched to oil, which slows her down. While the large canvases dry, she works on small oil paintings that combine realistic and abstract elements.
