I was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, where I studied psychology, education and German literature and received my Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg in 1977. The same year I traveled to Mexico where my life took the most surprising turn: I got married and became a mother, businesswoman and painter! My artwork includes watercolor, gouache, collage, embroidery, quilting and mixed media. All of my work is inspired by the colorful pieces of Mexican artisans.During my first weeks in Mexico in 1977, I realized something that affected me deeply: although most Mexicans could not imagine owning half of what so many people in my native Germany took for granted, they were, nonetheless, full of smiles.Their many smiles were only a part of my new equation; there were also the colors! Almost everywhere my eyes fell, I saw all the possibilities of the rainbow. Houses, for example, ran riot. Upper stories were painted in one hue while the lower portion was frequently accentuated with a wildly contrasting tone. Sometimes yet a third color outlined the windows and doors. And there was an overwhelming wealth of handicrafts: clay pots, woven rugs, wooden toys, furniture, plates and spoons — each decorated in every imaginable color and pattern. Their vibrancy created the stunning markets we discovered in every town we visited, no matter how small. Most market vendors were dressed in their traditional apparel, which varied from village to village. Fruits and vegetables, in the most astonishingly intense colors, were displayed on a little table or simply spread on the ground. Each seller piled her produce in picturesque little hills and mounds waiting to be purchased.I had been raised by a very elegant and fashion-conscious mother who had taught me early on that a skirt with stripes could not possibly be worn with a polka-dotted blouse; that an orange sweater could never be paired with red trousers. Here, nobody seemed to know these rules. Orange stripes and red dots were frequently married. The Mexicans’ abandon was beyond my imagining. Indian women exuberantly combined multi-hued embroidered flowers on their blouses with a kaleidoscope of ribbons adorning their skirts. A red striped shawl often topped it off! These women walked proudly, vivid explosions of color and form. Their style mocked my European fashion sense and, wonder of wonders, I found it all absolutely beautiful. Mexicans´ free use of color shocked me to my very bones. I was not conscious of it then, but I am convinced now that my ability to paint a few months later was from shock — all my learnt rules about pattern and color having been knocked dead. Now I was free. My work is fantasy, and what I paint are positive, whimsical images, revealing a situation that gives us hope. At the same time I think there is a seed of reality in each image. I paint very concrete everyday life situations: mother at the computer, daddy cooking in the kitchen with the children, mom and dad and the kids taking a hot bath together, friends embracing, or somebody holding her broken heart in her hands and crying. These are moments we all have known and lived through. In that sense, my paintings are universal; a person in Siberia understands them as well as a person in Japan or Africa. I do not paint typically Mexican scenes. Therefore, I do not consider my art to be Mexican, but when it comes to my colors and patterns, I see it as very Mexican, inspired by the color explosions of Mexican potters, weavers and artisans.

Name	Kiki Suarez
Gender	Female
Age	58
Ethnicity	White / Caucasian
Status	Married

Interests	psychology, philosophy, photography, painting, writing
Music	african, classical
TV	no tv
Books	haruki murakami, kazuo ishiguro, oliver sacks, alan watts

Website

kikitheartist.com

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Registered	Jan 11, 2009
Last update	Oct 22, 2009