Susan Sommer: Drawings and Paintings at Utica College

The work of Susan Sommer fills the Edith Langley Barrett Fine Art Gallery with resonating color, curious textures and unique design. The compositions she creates suggest a multi-level analysis of her natural surroundings that weaves back and forth between representation and abstraction, yet all the work holds together as one continuous and evolving thesis.

The layout of the exhibition is positioned in such a fashion that visitors can move from sub series to sub series in a similar way one experiences the rich, thought-provoking chapters of a classic novel. This allows us to see how Sommer works, recording her observations, feelings and sensations with each and every brush stroke. You can liken her to the monarchs she sometimes sees in the bushes near her country home as they pass through on their long journey from Canada to Mexico and back again. And like the monarchs, Sommer has her own flight pattern of building her energies and interests from the details that initially draw her attention, to then moving outward for the overall view blending the two together in a dazzling dance of colors, textures and tones. This is no more apparent then when she represents those very same butterflies in her paintings, where the overlapping technique of blending detail with the ambient setting builds a lush painterly surface that speaks of the very best aspects of nature’s life cycle.

Then there are the works that suggest the presence of humans represented by blocks of color that peek in and out of the undergrowth that quickly build up and out. This, one can assume, is the true struggle of the sensitive landscape painter: to blend the presence of mankind, with all their needs and desires, with the natural course and beauty our earth must maintain. Like Frank Lloyd Wright did until his death in 1959 in creating such historic designs as Fallingwater, there is a need to coexist, to reflect and to be as much a part of nature as possible without leaving a substantial footprint of change. In works like Discrete Units II (2014), which is horizontal, and City Squares (2014), which is vertical, you see a variety of intermingled ‘pods’ where one can both seek shelter and maintain a full and unobstructed view of nature.

Then there are the slightly different approaches to painting and composition with the oil on board Study in Blue and Brown II (2013) where you see a far more abstract vision realized – something leaning a bit more to calming, non-representational Color Field-type painting where the mood is softened and the fields flatten. Then you have Discrete Units II (2014) where you have a far more Surreal narrative, maybe even ritualistic like a Wifredo Lam painting, where there is this presence of a spiritual or otherworldly hybridized reclining figure in the foreground.

With works like Dark Light (2013) and Rocket II (2013) you have a structure or composition where the darkest, deepest tones attempt to, but do not succeed in removing all the light, life and hope out of a somewhat unsettling scene. These works remind me of the first days of spring as you tread across a damp wooded area over dark, damp and decomposing leaves. As you look around at the surrounding view that is dominated by a few old broken tree stumps you happen upon glimpses of hope and life in the colors of the earliest offerings of the new year’s small budding flowers.

And lastly, we have the Untitled Series of gouache paintings on paper from 2016. Ten fluid and spontaneous works that might give viewers the best glimpse of how the artist thinks when it comes to the pairing of colors. All anchored by five accents of yellow and orange highlights, each of these works has a different combination of colors and densities of brush strokes that tell how the ever changing puzzle of cool and warm fields can be attuned until just the right mood or sensation is achieved.

The Edith Langely Barrett Fine Art Gallery can be found on the lower level of the Library Concourse on the campus of Utica College in Upstate New York. The exhibition ends March 3rd.