Great Artists on Campus: Susanne Themlitz

Susanne S. D. Themlitz is a Portuguese-German artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, drawing, installation, painting, photography and video. Working with a wide range of materials, she creates dreamlike universes inhabited by hybrid figures and bodies assembled from human, animal and plant forms. Through a language shaped by metamorphosis, she builds a museum of imaginary creatures that questions the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the living and the inanimate. Her work enters into dialogue with art history, natural science, folk narrative and childhood imagination, exploring memory, dreams and the unconscious. This combination of conceptual research and poetic dimension makes Themlitz one of the most original artists in Portuguese contemporary art. Since the 1990s, she has presented solo and group exhibitions in Portugal, Germany, Spain and France. Her work is held in important public and private collections, including Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Museu de Serralves, Fundação EDP, Fundação Carmona e Costa, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas and Museo de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de Santander. She has received several awards, including the Drawing Prize at the 5th Caldas da Rainha Biennial (1993), the Dr. Best Foundation prize in Cologne (2000), the City Desk Sculpture Prize (2001) and the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Prize in the video category (2007). Entry is free with a ticket collected on the day.