Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Vonn Sumner’s Ambiguous, Resisting Figures

Vonn Sumner’s ambiguous characters, often seen in makeshift costumes, are part of an ongoing narrative that the viewer is invited to dissect. Are they enthusiastic hobbyists? Deadly serious vigilantes? What is obvious is the painter’s ability to evoke mystery and elegance through these unlikely heroes. Sumner was last featured on HiFructose.com here.

Vonn Sumner’s ambiguous characters, often seen in makeshift costumes, are part of an ongoing narrative that the viewer is invited to dissect. Are they enthusiastic hobbyists? Deadly serious vigilantes? What is obvious is the painter’s ability to evoke mystery and elegance through these unlikely heroes. Sumner was last featured on HiFructose.com here.


“Through this playful ambiguity, Sumner’s cast of characters draws us into their cryptic narratives, as seen in the cabal series of wall portraits,” a recent statement says. “Defined as a group of people united in some close design together, a cabal promotes their private views or interests, often through intrigue and in secret. This plays into the idea of secret societies, although Sumner’s series of portraits are more humorously enigmatic than sinister.”

See more of Sumner’s recent work below.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Peter Chan's paintings focus on the quiet moments — mediation; prayer; a solitary bath. We encounter his characters immersed in a silence that's almost palpable. Chan is originally from Hong Kong and currently based in Toronto. Religious motifs find their way into his work often. In Green Ecstasy, an alien-green nun tilts her head back in a trance-like state that evokes the near-orgasmic religious fervor of Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In the rest of Chan's "Ecstasy" series, contemporary-looking individuals seem to be in the grips of similar encounters with the divine. Coming up, Chan has work in Hashimoto Contemporary's "Moleskine IV" show in San Francisco and in Galerie Youn's booth at Love Fair Toronto, both happening this month.
This Saturday, Merry Karnowsky gallery will present three side by side solo shows by Los Angeles based artists Mercedes Helnwein, Kim Kimbro, and Vonn Sumner. Together, their new works are elaborate and psychologically intense, depicting dream like moments. Read more about their respective shows, "Mama Said Amen", "The Queen of Calvary", and "Gravity and Other Lies" after the jump.
South Korea-raised, Melbourne-based artist Kim Hyunji (also known as Kim Kim Kim) crafts stirring oil portraits that experiment with texture and movement. The artist has said that unlike photographs, “painting no longer relies on flatness; instead it has branched out in the expanded field where I see paint as a sculptural material to add physicality to my portraits.”
Painter Brad Kunkle (featured in HF Vol. 25) delves further into his exploration of spirituality and ritual with his latest solo show, "The Belonging," opening at Arcadia Contemporary in New York on December 11. The artist combines oil paint with gold and silver leaf to create ethereal visions of women traversing windy fields. They seem to be on spiritual quests. We see them being lifted off the ground, their expressions knowing yet still enraptured, as glistening gusts of leaves and feathers sweep them away into the heavens.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List