Born in Greece to an Icelandic artist mother and British musician, writer, poet and climber father, Sunna Wathen (‚Sunnna‘ in Icelandic) had travelled through Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Morocco before arriving in Mallorca at the age of two. Her parents (her father being a poet) had met Robert Graves in earlier years and felt at home on the island. Her brother was born in Palma before the journey continued: by the time Sunna went to art college in London she had attended 22 schools in many countries with ever new languages, Greek on Crete, Gaelic in Connemara, Icelandic in Reykjavik, Spanish in Mallorca, while explorations took the family to India, Nepal, Indonesia.
Sunna‘s mother, Asta Kristinsdóttir, was the rock of the family, cooking, providing, nurturing, yet always finding time for her art with astonishing sculptures and portraits in felt, while her father (often playing the Uillean bag pipes at the same time) and Sunna went mountain climbing. Ronnie Wathen was an astute mountaineer, climbing with the likes of Chris Bonnington and Don Whillans, and was still leading skiing expeditions across Icelandic glaciers shortly before suddenly tragically passing away of cancer at the age of fifty-eight.
“Moving around all the time made me strong. It wasn’t the same for my brother who felt intimidated by it. I was
lucky. In the early days in the 60s in Deià there were a lot of crazy people coming in and out, wild parties and creativity – but we had my mother as anchor. I hope I am that for my kids too.”
Having studied art in the UK at various colleges, and obtaining a Masters Degree from the Royal College of Art in London, with her own children Sunna moved to the art scene in Berlin before returning home to Mallorca. Living in the house her father had built with his own hands in the 60s, her idyllic home is just a stone throw away from
Cala Deià.
Sunna Wathen works across a spectrum of mediums from painting to sculpture, oil, watercolour, acrylic, gouache, textiles, stitching, knitting, collage, dough. Her layered and expressive pieces combine dreamscapes, inner states, landscape and still life. We meet in her multi levelled Palma studio in the old quarter, an old theatre setting.
“I draw things all the time, as I‘m looking around I just see shapes and the juxtapositions of things and ideas.”
One large textile work I remember from a previous solo exhibition at La Residencia. “Here I had invited people to participate, write or draw on it, it was astounding how shy people were to engage,” Wathen comments. Large canvases and giant quilts alternate with sculptures, selfmade books of varying shapes, photographs and medical Xrays and a whole library of drawing diaries, books and books of sketches all numbered – with ideas and more ideas – plenty, for a few lifetimes.
Currently Sunna Wathen is preparing her next solo show ‚ Breathing Lung‘ at the Residencia, Belmont Hotel in Deià.
“I‘ve shown there for maybe 40 years – it‘s harder to get a one person show now. But I have one this year, and I‘m very excited about it.”
Uscha Pohl
Breathing Lung, Sunna Wathen
opens on July 31st 2026
La Residencia
Belmont Hotel, Deià, Mallorca
Rough Muleta, 2026, Sunna Wathen,acrylic on board 20 x 20cms
Wind at the Naked and the Dead, 2026, Sunna Wathen, 40 x 30 cms
Xray Sail, 2018, Sunna Wathen,sail made of real Xrays on boat
Bread Mountain, 1991, Sunna Wathen, baked bread shapes
Studio view, photo Tomek Sierek
Boot and Dead Vida, 2024, Sunna Wathen, oil and India ink on paper, 250 x 150 cms
Images left to right – opposite page: Rough Muleta, 2026, acrylic on board
20 x 20cms; Wind at the Naked and the Dead, 2026, 40 x 30 cms. This page: Bread Mountain, baked bread shapes, 1991; Stop Light, 2024, oil and India ink on paper,150 x 200 cms. 2024, Xray Sail, 2018, sail made of real Xrays on boat; Boot and Dead Vida, 2024, 250 x 150 cms, oil and India ink on paper. Studio view and portrait by Tomek Sierek.