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\u201cI\u2019ve led a very simple life,\u201d Susan Sommer says with a smile, seeming a little perplexed by the suggestion that her art might have been influenced by her biography.<\/p>\n
Still, although her work is utterly abstract and we would be mistaken in looking for even the most rudimentary traces of representational detail in her canvases, each painting she makes bears the stamp of a series of learning experiences that together form the basis of her artistic personality.<\/p>\n
Sommer took both art lessons and formal ballet classes as a child. At fifteen she began five years as an enthusiastic student at the Art Students League of New York in Manhattan, spending as much as eight hours a day drawing and painting from the life model. Between 1968 and 1972 she followed the BFA course at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. Whereas both the League and Moore encouraged representational art, Sommer had already discovered her passion for abstraction.<\/p>\n
As soon as she graduated from Moore, Sommer set herself up in a studio in New York City and began painting and studying with jazz musician and philosopher Bob Bianco whose teaching derived from Joseph Schillinger\u2019s remarkable volume The Mathematical Basis of the Arts. This philosophy still underpins her assumptions, and although she recognizes that artistic decisions have to be made intuitively, she insists that only a mathematically correct painting can be successful.<\/p>\n
After almost a decade in the city Susan Sommer embarked upon what has been the most enduring and significant influence on her work, living close to nature. She has had a home in the foothills of New York\u2019s Catskill Mountains for thirty five years and happily admits that her work is shot through with her daily experience of the sights and sounds of the natural world. \u201cI take in the landscape all the time,\u201d she says, \u201cand what goes into my unconscious comes out on the canvas as an improvisational expression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of Susan Sommer\u2019s paintings starts with a technique that she learned years ago in the life room of the Art Students League. She draws one line, or one long gesture. In figure painting this would derive from the life model\u2019s spine. In paintings like City Squares she immediately complicates that gesture with the addition of a grid of squares drawn in with pencil and ruler.<\/p>\n
These paintings belong to a direction that Sommer calls Squarism, and they have their genesis in watching television in her daughter\u2019s Los Angeles apartment in 2013. The pixel-like squares that the imperfect TV picture would repeatedly break into struck Sommer as a fascinating possibility for pictorial invention.<\/p>\n
Sommer insists that the color of the first square that she paints is her only subjective decision in the entire painting. Her second mark might be red \u2013 for the simple reason that she wants there to be a red highlight in the finished painting \u2013 but thereafter every decision is a response to what has gone before. She might add hues that are variations on that first red, or greens that oppose it. This might be followed by neutral greys, or contrasts of blacks and white.<\/p>\n
All of these decisions are arrived at intuitively, and to the accompaniment of a constant musical soundtrack. Sommer\u2019s studio is alive with the sounds of jazz. She has compiled hundreds of tracks and plays them on shuffle so that she never knows what will come next. But they all feature improvisational musicians like Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and George Gershwin with whom she feels her painting shares an affinity.<\/p>\n
City Squares is the latest picture here and Sommer found it difficult to integrate the brightly colored squares with the colors and rhythms drawn from nature. \u201cIt was a real fight,\u201d she says with a smile. \u201cI went back and reworked it many times. It wasn\u2019t an easy birth.\u201d In fact Susan Sommer is never easily satisfied by her own work, because her aim is nothing less than beauty, simplicity, and clarity. \u201cI feel that I can express myself more accurately in paint than in words,\u201d she explains, \u201cbut whatever one says on the canvas has to be beautifully said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Susan Sommer\u2019s Monarch Butterflies gouaches on paper are small in scale and painted as swift improvisations. We should not mistake them for minor works however.<\/p>\n
They distill a wide range of knowledge and stimuli, and while Sommer explains that they are \u201cbased on living in the country,\u201d and adds that \u201cthey are about the sound of nature, and about the color of nature,\u201d she stresses that these sources are always balanced by \u201ca desire to be purely abstract\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deeply absorbed lessons about structure underpin their creation. Sommer emphasizes her father\u2019s influence, describing him as \u201ca builder who understood the importance of a strong foundation\u201d and recalling that he insisted that she spend two years of her adolescence working for an architect to gain \u201cdiscipline of the hand\u201d through the technical mastery of mechanical drawing and architectural lettering.<\/p>\n
Equally important are structural lessons learned from the history of modernist painting, from plein air predecessors like C\u00e9zanne, through Picasso\u2019s cubist grids, to the monumental works that de Kooning and Kline built upon them. In fact she credits the vigorously applied brushmarks that constitute the Monarch Butterflies paintings to \u201cthe abstract expressionist in me\u201d.<\/p>\n
The butterflies themselves are hinted at rather than represented by swiftly applied strokes of reds, yellows and orange, and it is no accident that they have played such a central role in Sommer\u2019s art. Summer visitors to the Hudson Valley share the landscape during the months when Sommer can work outdoors. Though they are far less delicate we might assume \u2013 they live for weeks and each autumn they migrate to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond \u2013 their numbers have been decimated in recent years as their habitats are threatened by modern agricultural methods.<\/p>\n
Still, despite their vulnerability they return perennially to add their indomitable beauty to our world. It is as though they stand for Sommer\u2019s creative spirit, for she stresses that in painting it is vital to \u201cstay in the moment,\u201d adding \u201cit\u2019s a more honest expression that way. All you are is what\u2019s happening right now. You\u2019re not what used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
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By Robert Ayers \u201cI\u2019ve led a very simple life,\u201d Susan Sommer says with a smile, seeming a little perplexed by the suggestion that her art might have been influenced by her biography. Still, although her work is utterly abstract and we would be mistaken in looking for even the most rudimentary traces of representational detail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"
By Robert Ayres<\/p>
\u201cI\u2019ve led a very simple life,\u201d Susan Sommer says with a smile, seeming a
little perplexed by the suggestion that her art might have been influenced
by her biography.<\/p>
Still, although her work is utterly abstract and we would be mistaken in
looking for even the most rudimentary traces of representational detail in
her canvases, each painting she makes bears the stamp of a series of
learning experiences that together form the basis of her artistic personality.<\/p>
Sommer took both art lessons and formal ballet classes as a child. At fifteen
she began five years as an enthusiastic student at the Art Students League
of New York in Manhattan, spending as much as eight hours a day drawing
and painting from the life model. Between 1968 and 1972 she followed the
BFA course at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. Whereas
both the League and Moore encouraged representational art, Sommer had
already discovered her passion for abstraction.<\/p>
As soon as she graduated from Moore, Sommer set herself up in a studio in After almost a decade in the city Susan Sommer embarked upon what has Each of Susan Sommer\u2019s paintings starts with a technique that she learned These paintings belong to a direction that Sommer calls Squarism<\/em>, and they Sommer insists that the color of the first square that she paints is her only All of these decisions are arrived at intuitively, and to the accompaniment of City Squares<\/em> is the latest picture here and Sommer found it difficult to Susan Sommer\u2019s Monarch Butterflies<\/em> gouaches on paper are small in scale They distill a wide range of knowledge and stimuli, and while Sommer Deeply absorbed lessons about structure underpin their creation. Sommer Equally important are structural lessons learned from the history of The butterflies themselves are hinted at rather than represented by swiftly Still, despite their vulnerability they return perennially to add their
New York City and began painting and studying with jazz musician and
philosopher Bob Bianco whose teaching derived from Joseph Schillinger\u2019s
remarkable volume The Mathematical Basis of the Arts<\/em>. This philosophy still
underpins her assumptions, and although she recognizes that artistic
decisions have to be made intuitively, she insists that only a mathematically
correct painting can be successful.<\/p>
been the most enduring and significant influence on her work, living close to
nature. She has had a home in the foothills of New York\u2019s Catskill Mountains
for thirty five years and happily admits that her work is shot through with
her daily experience of the sights and sounds of the natural world. \u201cI take in
the landscape all the time,\u201d she says, \u201cand what goes into my unconscious
comes out on the canvas as an improvisational expression.\u201d<\/p>
years ago in the life room of the Art Students League. She draws one line, or
one long gesture. In figure painting this would derive from the life model\u2019s
spine. In paintings like City Squares<\/em> she immediately complicates that
gesture with the addition of a grid of squares drawn in with pencil and ruler.<\/p>
have their genesis in watching television in her daughter\u2019s Los Angeles
apartment in 2013. The pixel-like squares that the imperfect TV picture
would repeatedly break into struck Sommer as a fascinating possibility for
pictorial invention.<\/p>
subjective decision in the entire painting. Her second mark might be red \u2013
for the simple reason that she wants there to be a red highlight in the
finished painting \u2013 but thereafter every decision is a response to what has
gone before. She might add hues that are variations on that first red, or
greens that oppose it. This might be followed by neutral greys, or contrasts
of blacks and white.<\/p>
a constant musical soundtrack. Sommer\u2019s studio is alive with the sounds of
jazz. She has compiled hundreds of tracks and plays them on shuffle so
that she never knows what will come next. But they all feature
improvisational musicians like Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and George
Gershwin with whom she feels her painting shares an affinity.<\/p>
integrate the brightly colored squares with the colors and rhythms drawn
from nature. \u201cIt was a real fight,\u201d she says with a smile. \u201cI went back and
reworked it many times. It wasn\u2019t an easy birth.\u201d In fact Susan Sommer is
never easily satisfied by her own work, because her aim is nothing less than
beauty, simplicity, and clarity. \u201cI feel that I can express myself more
accurately in paint than in words,\u201d she explains, \u201cbut whatever one says on
the canvas has to be beautifully said.\u201d<\/p>
and painted as swift improvisations. We should not mistake them for minor
works however.<\/p>
explains that they are \u201cbased on living in the country,\u201d and adds that \u201cthey
are about the sound of nature, and about the color of nature,\u201d she stresses
that these sources are always balanced by \u201ca desire to be purely abstract\u201d.<\/p>
emphasizes her father\u2019s influence, describing him as \u201ca builder who
understood the importance of a strong foundation\u201d and recalling that he
insisted that she spend two years of her adolescence working for an
architect to gain \u201cdiscipline of the hand\u201d through the technical mastery of
mechanical drawing and architectural lettering.<\/p>
modernist painting, from plein air<\/em> predecessors like C\u00e9zanne, through
Picasso\u2019s cubist grids, to the monumental works that de Kooning and Kline
built upon them. In fact she credits the vigorously applied brushmarks that
constitute the Monarch Butterflies<\/em> paintings to \u201cthe abstract expressionist
in me\u201d.<\/p>
applied strokes of reds, yellows and orange, and it is no accident that they
have played such a central role in Sommer\u2019s art. Summer visitors to the
Hudson Valley share the landscape during the months when Sommer can
work outdoors. Though they are far less delicate we might assume \u2013 they
live for weeks and each autumn they migrate to the Gulf of Mexico and
beyond \u2013 their numbers have been decimated in recent years as their
habitats are threatened by modern agricultural methods.<\/p>
indomitable beauty to our world. It is as though they stand for Sommer\u2019s
creative spirit, for she stresses that in painting it is vital to \u201cstay in the
moment,\u201d adding \u201cit\u2019s a more honest expression that way. All you are is
what\u2019s happening right now. You\u2019re not what used to be.\u201d<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3088,"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2086\/revisions\/3088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansommer.com\/staging\/6883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}