With their strange, cor­pu­lent bod­ies and vague expres­sions, the crea­tures that inhabit Alli­son Sommer’s work are hard to describe. Exist­ing in a fan­tasy world that recalls the atmos­phere of vin­tage children’s illus­tra­tions at their most bril­liant and bizarre (think Grimm’s Fairy Tales in their orig­i­nal, gory glory), these eerie char­ac­ters acti­vate the imag­i­na­tion on a num­ber of unique lev­els. Her fig­ures are mon­strous in their cute­ness, dan­ger­ous in their attrac­tive­ness. Like some­thing out of the imag­i­na­tion of Guillermo del Toro at his finest, they have a double-​edged appeal, at once beau­ti­ful and dis­turb­ing. Even the boar-​headed cen­taur wheel­ing (lit­er­ally, on a con­trap­tion well-​suited from your Aunt’s elderly dachs­hund) willy-​nilly through a field, net­ting winged wein­ers, has a sort of grotesque nobil­ity to him. The works in Sommer’s new col­lec­tion man­age to be funny, touch­ing, per­plex­ing and stu­pen­dously beau­ti­ful all at once.

Som­mers’ upcom­ing show, open­ing this Fri­day at Thinkspace’s new loca­tion in Cul­ver City, explores the deep­est recesses of the fabled Schlaraf­fen­land, or “land of milk and honey.” Deal­ing with themes of glut­tony, con­sump­tion and unself­con­scious aban­don, Som­mers’ impres­sive body of work, which includes nearly 50 new works in paint, illus­tra­tion and sculp­ture, offers a Bosch-​like cor­nu­copia of sur­real, cor­po­real com­po­si­tions. Her work has the power to make the viewer exceed­ingly uncom­fort­able, in that most delight­ful of ways, and with that raw, vis­ceral response she makes a tiny wound into which her com­men­tary on con­sump­tion can be sewed. Like Will Cot­ton, but with sig­nif­i­cantly more bite, Som­mers’ uses pretty to med­i­tate on ugly.

While all of the char­ac­ters in Som­mers’ Schlaraf­fen­land seem to be engaged in vary­ing forms of con­sump­tion and trans­gres­sion, the will­ing­ness of their par­tic­i­pa­tion is sus­pect in cer­tain scenes. Sev­eral of the com­po­si­tions have sin­is­ter over­tones of mali­cious coer­cion, and it is this jux­ta­po­si­tion that gives Som­mers’ work its sub­ver­sive power. Cer­tainly one of the most imag­i­na­tive of the new gen­er­a­tion of con­tem­po­rary painters, and with a deft­ness of exe­cu­tion to match, a trip to Som­mers’ “Schlaraf­fen­land” will be a great way to kick off this summer’s art season.

Tags: Allison Sommers, bizarre, boar-headed, double-edged, eerie, gory, Schlaraffenland, Thinkspace Gallery, vintage, well-suited

« UR New York x Art Asylum

Ashley Zelinskie x Chor Boogie : Glass Can »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Event.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.