Anonymous art show, Sommers in the Wind

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-This past winter, the Art Association of Jackson Hole mailed 250 small, blank canvasses to artists across the country. The artists painted or collaged on the canvas as they wanted and mailed it back to the Art Association. Now, more than 200 six-inch square paintings of different styles, tones and subject matter are lining the walls of the Artspace Gallery at the Center for the Arts.

The pieces will be on display through Friday at 4:30 p.m., an hour before the Whodunit auction begins. Attendees at the auction pay a $5 donation to get a bidding pencil, and at 5:30 p.m., they can begin writing their name on one of 10 lines beneath each painting. At 7 p.m., the bidding ends, and one name is drawn for each piece. The winner then purchases the piece for $99.

Many of the artists are represented by one of the major contemporary galleries in town, have taught a visiting workshop at the Art Association or are a local artist. These donated pieces may be worth much more than the purchase price of $99, but buyers won’t learn the artist’s identity until they actually pay for the piece.

In addition to the Whodunit auction at the Center for the Arts, a showing of Sue Sommers’ bright, energetic acrylic landscapes will open on Friday. For her upcoming show, “Inspired by the Wind River Range,” Sommers said she wants to talk about the energy of being in a place. Most of her paintings came from small, plein air watercolors, sketches or photographs taken at the headwaters of the Green River.

When painting landscapes, she explores the characteristics and potential of her materials to inform the viewer about how it feels to be in that place, instead of just what it looks like.

To do that, Sommers uses interpretive colors and energetic lines to depict these landscapes.

“I do use heightened colors,” she said. “I’m not really interested in a natural photographic representation, so my colors are more expressionistic. I’m trying to make an honest translation that doesn’t try to explain every detail … it’s more about trying to communicate a sense of something internal.”

In addition to exploring “what the paint can do,” Sommers includes torn pieces from encyclopedias, comic book pages and even a tae kwon do handbook. The collaged material is sometimes left unpainted to “keep some air in there … or maybe a little space where someone else could get an idea in,” Sommers said. The bits of textual collage represent the thoughts we bring into nature from our lives but do not have any implied meanings.

“I want things to be open-ended to allow for the viewer to have an experience of their own,” Sommers said.

Sommers said that while painting in her studio, she conjured the feeling of that place, where image originated with a free-flowing sense of “rapture” instead of making “cerebral” art. Her paintings might look busy, confusing or unfinished at times, but their wide range of texture and energetic marks are ultimately compelling.

Courtesy, Sue Sommers

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Anonymous art show, Sommers in the Wind | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

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