ALLISON SOMMERS 

POND SONG

solo exhibition

June 6th - July 6th, 2025

Opening Reception: First Friday, June 6th, 2025 ​

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Arch Enemy Arts presents POND SONG by Allison Sommers (based in Berlin, b.1983). The show consists of fifteen paintings and drawings exhibited with an installation of hand-tufted, tear-shaped bathmats to create a visceral waterscape of flesh and feeling. Swamp-born icons and celestial imagery reflect Sommers’ experience of pain, their tenacity through grief, and a reclamation of their own body.

 

“While I was painting this show, I was diagnosed with both endometriosis and fibromyalgia, undergoing surgery for the former in January…I was [already] thinking a lot about hiding, and carving a sort of utopian space for myself away from the abject horror of the world—a stable, safe ‘locus amoenus’ within which to lick wounds and cower. I became obsessed with the concept of the garden, both in its artificial containment and allegory of paradise in miniature. As I went deeper, I realized that, not only was this a recurring theme, but it suddenly became urgent in my immediate life as I descended into life-altering chronic pain and concomitant depression…

 

“The related struggles, frustrations, and grief became a prominent theme throughout the work and sometimes showed up literally—bathing and swimming are now vitally important to me, and so my garden became a flooded forest (see also: rug tufted bathmats); most of the figures have prominent laparoscopy scars mirroring my own. Self-care and honesty about my own body took on a new primacy in my life. Pain and how I am navigating through it bled deeply into the work, but in the end, I want it to also be a yawp of joy and defiance.” - Allison Sommers

 

In POND SONG, Sommers paints the human form released from spatial constraint. Bodies leak, stretch and evolve. Roots entangle the spine and leaves grow from intestines. It’s grotesque, beautiful, and sacred. Throughout the collection, Sommers makes classical references to religion, antiquity, and the constellation Cassiopeia, also known as the “W,” which never sets in the Northern hemisphere. These symbols remind us of the recurrent nature of all things, how life and identity ebbs and flows, flounders and triumphs. The work offers feelings, not answers; a space where the spiritual blends with the corporeal to suggest the boundlessness of lived experience. 

 

Allison Sommers grew up on Cold War era Air Force bases in the Southern United States. A self-taught artist, Sommers graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in History and a concentration in Early Modern England. They began showing with Arch Enemy Arts in 2014 and relocated to Berlin six years ago. POND SONG is Sommers’ first solo feature with the gallery. 

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POND SONG will be on view from June 6th - July 6th, 2025
Sold works will begin to ship the week starting July 13th, unless other rush shipping arrangements have been made. 

Items marked with a red dot have already been sold.

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