Today we’d like to introduce you to Vonn Sumner.
Vonn, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, down on the peninsula. I was the seventh generation on my father’s side to be born and raised in that area, going back to when California was still Mexico. I was always drawing and making things, like a lot of kids do…I just never stopped! I remember a lot of drawing from comic books (my favorite was the X-Men) and copying all kinds of things. I saw a lot of art that came through my father’s picture-frame shop, and my parents took me to museums and galleries all the time, and there was art in the house too. So, I was very lucky to be exposed to a lot of art growing up.
When it came time to go to college, I applied to UC Davis just because I saw Wayne Thiebaud listed on the faculty: he is a legendary artist and teacher in the Bay Area, and I couldn’t believe he was still teaching. I was very lucky to have him take me under his wing and be very generous to me, as were many other great teachers/artists at Davis. After I got my MFA, I moved to New York for a couple of years, soaking it all in and working for the Guggenheim Museum, among other places. But New York became financially unsustainable, and when I moved back to California, I landed in the Los Angeles area. There I found a lot of opportunity and a community of other artists and interesting people. I have been very lucky to exhibit my paintings a lot and get some attention, and I even helped to start and run a gallery in Downtown LA in the 2000s called Pharmaka. That was a lot of work, but also a great education, and we had a lot of fun. Artists are crazy, but we need each other!
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I make paintings, usually with people in them. While I am interested in all kinds of art and painting, I find I am always most engaged by the kind that has that human element. But, of course, that can be problematic- there is the whole messy history of humans and the ways we represent and depict each other. That history is rich with inspiration and interest, but can also be limiting: who gets to depict whom, and how? So, most often, I use my body/face as a subject, because I feel that I at least have some right to depict that. Almost like my body is a kind of ‘found object’ that I am allowed to use in whatever manner I want to. I need the freedom that idea allows for.
I believe that all clothing is ‘costume’ and all identities are ‘performative’– so why not have fun with it? I use clothing and costumes and gestures and body language to convey something about my experience of being a person in a body on earth at this time.
Beyond that, I have no interest in telling people what they should think or what kind of message they should get from my work…I trust people to bring their own life experience and intelligence and associations to it. I work from my own personal intuition, compulsions, and curiosities. I follow my instincts and get carried away with my imagination and the process of making a painting. On some level, any painting is still just all about shapes and colors and the visual language of pictures. I want my paintings to make room for any and all states of being: humor, fear, tenderness, anger, longing, whimsy, defiance, uncertainty, desire, strangeness, dreams, etc. I want my work to open up toward the world, rather than close off into one corner of fixed meaning. That is my goal, anyway.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
Everything I know, I have learned from experience. So, by definition I could not have known it earlier…it is a process of learning self-trust, and that can only happen by showing up day after day and doing the work.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I am represented in Los Angeles by KP Projects; in San Francisco by the Paul Thiebaud Gallery, and in Washington DC by Morton Fine Art. My next exhibition is out there on the east coast in the Spring of next year. I am also part of a show that is currently up in a museum in the Bay Area, but that will come down to Santa Ana (OCCCA) next year; a really unique show called “Circle of Truth” that includes people like Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston and Lisa Adams and many others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vonnsumner.com
- Instagram: @vonnsumner
Image Credit:
All images credit: Vonn Sumner
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