LONDON.- AdamWaymouthArt, in association with Rook & Raven Gallery, present Erik Sommerʼs first UK Solo Show, “Pray To Fallen Skies.”

“It seems that painting is always dead, or dying” - a sentiment Erik Sommer has chosen frankly not to believe. He finds the actual situation of painting rather refreshing at the moment, as there are numerous artists helping to move painting into its next transition, its next step. Sommer believes that there is a lot that has yet to be done, or discovered, in painting, and thinks it will never truly ʻend,ʼ as no one has painted the perfect painting yet, but artists will always keep trying.

In “Pray To Fallen Skies” Sommer is showing a new body of larger work that is being displayed in two separate viewing rooms constructed within the gallery by architect/designer Tom Finch. Access to these spaces is limited so that viewers may have their own one-on-one immersive time with the work. This is a move away from the normal gallery experience where seeing the work unhindered can be a rarity.

Inspired, in part, by the philosophy of Brian OʼDoherty and the Turner Bequest at the National Gallery, by using the White Cube as a space where the effects of nature are controlled and time is protected, the work becomes sharply juxtaposed against each other while simultaneously creating a calm, tranquil viewing experience. As the art in the cube becomes isolated it is able to exist free of external distractions, and so, in sharp contrast, one seeʼs within the work the controlling of nature and the preservation of time.

In Sommerʼs words, “While the cube reflects the sanctity of experience, this show is a reflection on mortality, an acceptance of loss. The work is in essence the effects of tomorrow, an exploration between beauty and chance. While sombre, there remains a quiet beauty, a secret hope: Though we may be praying to fallen skies, the future is still ours.”

Erik Sommer is a New York based artist who works with varying layers of materials and paint which replicate something that seems almost to have been cut directly from a decaying, urban environment. His artworks are not intended to represent a precise location or to be a traced replica of any wall that exists in our reality; moreover they are a representation, a homage to the strength and beauty of the material itself. In saying this, Sommer has successfully created the illusion that each of his works has existed for a hundred lifetimes. As Sommer himself says, he is “capturing the passing of time through the deterioration of texture”.