Sale by Sarah Kutz

I live in Valdivia, in southern Chile, surrounded by rivers, native rainforest, volcanoes, lakes and sea — nature isn't a subject I visit, it's what I live inside every day, and it's the main source of what I paint. My work grows out of natural processes: glaciers melting, magma cooling, currents shifting, clouds forming. I work in mixed media because a single technique can't hold what those processes actually feel like — I build up layers of material the way ice builds up in strata, or let paint pool and crack the way lava does as it cools. Once the textures, relief and layers are built, I draw characters and creatures into them in detail, almost like a comic — telling a small story that lives inside the landscape I've just created. It's a way of layering narrative on top of process, so each piece works both as an abstract natural landscape and as a story you can find once you look closer. I've been painting and selling since 2008, mostly through direct relationships with collectors and my own network in Chile. I'm looking to reach collectors beyond that circle, especially internationally, without losing the personal, considered way I currently sell. Artfinder's focus on independent artists and its curated, collector-facing audience feels like the right space for that — a platform that treats original work as work, not as one item in an endless catalog.