Marti Somers, California Contemporary Art Marti Somers Figurative Abstract Whimsical Painting

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Marti Somers Rice Bowl (an Asian inspired image with chopsticks and a bowl of rice) with fish. hand written poem … Read more Marti Somers Rice Bowl (an Asian inspired image with chopsticks and a bowl of rice) with fish. hand written poem verso. 24 X 24 inches A California artist, Somers received her BFA at the University of Hawaii. She returned to California and worked as a graphic designer at Stanford University and was a principal at Artefact Design in Palo Alto. But ultimately turned to painting. She opened Studio Believe in San Carlos and co-founded Somersault Studios, a non-profit publishing venture to benefit the arts of Northern California. Somers’ sensibility is both poetic and suggestive. Her scrapbook-like merger of natural images (both painted and collage) and writing, rendered in tactile, fragrant wax-based encaustic paint, is seductive and convincing. Rich compilations of vintage images, words, colors, and textures. Flowers, trees, and leaves share the space in each picture with animals, fragments of patterned paper, layers of thin oil paint over thick, glazes that partially obscure one layer and provide a new layer to work with. Stylized flowers, butterflies and birds appear prominently within Somers’ heavily textured, ‘antiqued’ bands of color and pattern. Robert Rauschenberg meets Odilon Redon in her assemblage juxtapositions of dreamy words and images. She has exhibited her work at Caldwell Snyder Gallery in San Francisco and Sue Greenwood Fine Art in Laguna as well as Morpeth Contemporary in New Jersey and The Adamson Gallery in Sacramento. SELECT AWARDS 2001 Society of IllustratIon Annual and Exhibition STRONG WOMEN series, New York, NY Communication Arts Illustration Annual MISCELLANEA Series Print Magazine Western Art Directors Club See less