Bernd Sommer

Bernd Sommer, born in 1969, lives and works in Constance on Lake Constance.

Similar to a memory that is evoked, figures emerge in the artist's works and come alive through the colour contrast. An interspace that connects the past with the present is created. The large-format works in oil are sometimes created over several months. In addition, Sommer paints the small-format works, also in oil, often without priming and stretching them onto stretcher frames.
His work is always embedded in a field of tension between the individual and the environment. The intimacy that these pictures create is rooted in the everyday. Sommer is not concerned with the exact, unmistakable representation of the individual. The inner worlds he depicts negotiate existential questions of being, feeling and thinking. They are characterised by the seemingly realistic image of the face, surrounded by scenarios set with free application of paint as abstract colour formations or apparently recognisable shapes. Sommer's approach to these works takes place on an emotional, tangible level, without disregarding the intellectual approach.