New perception of form and color

(Excerpt) Tom Sommerlatte has found inspiration in many places around the world during his long life. Although he studied natural sciences and business administration and made a career as an entrepreneur, he never neglected his artistic “self”. After studying art parallel to his chemistry studies, he developed his own style in his artistic work over the decades, which he always sees as a second pillar, second facet of his personality – and has always lived this way. An extensive oeuvre has emerged from this, from which 55 works can be seen in the Idstein Gerberhaus. The artist has determined that 25 percent of the sum raised by the sale of works from the exhibition will go to the Hospice Foundation Idsteiner Land. The exhibition is a piece of the mosaic in the picture of the activities of the hospice foundation and a cultural highlight for Idstein. The response to the vernissage reflected a great deal of interest in the world of colors and forms of the artist who is a member of the Wiesbaden Artists Group 50. 

A couple of months ago, when Tom Sommerlatte asked me whether I might be willing to talk about his pictures, I agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

I have known Tom Sommerlatte for many years. To be precise, I first came across him soon after I arrived in the Rhine-Main area at the end of the 1990s, and initially our acquaintance was rather one-sided and confined to the context of the Friends of the Museum Wiesbaden, where I did various odd jobs as a student.  more …

Visual art has been a constant in Tom Sommerlatte’s life. In the 1960s, studying natural sciences in Berlin, New York State and Paris, he also attended classes at the local academies of fine art. Not content with academia alone, he always sought out the company of practicing artists as well. His close contacts with painters and his numerous trips through half of Europe helped shape the style of his paintings and drawings, which we see here today.  more…

The studied natural scientist has dedicated himself to the “discovery of something new in the fourth dimension that will impact the whole world.” On his voyage of discovery, he seems to revel in an intoxicating harmony of colors and forms – an impression, however, only adequate to the initial encounter with his images. Created amidst the spontaneous flow of feeling, these exuberant paintings are, in fact, meticulously planned. Upon closer inspection, our first impression turns out to be an illusion, as with the ostensible “Symphony in Blue” as a scene with people, plants and elk.
 
Angelika Eder, Wiesbadener Kurier, 2010

Tom Sommerlatte comes from the world of managers, is an honorary professor, a bestselling author, and a painter.

His pencil drawings and etchings bear curious titles like: The Children of Progress are Aging or For the Sake of Their Endangered Cause, the Loners Show Solidarity. Each piece is an independent expression of a pictorial idea – each a delicately crafted delight.

His oil paintings oscillate between figuration and abstraction. Surfaces give only a hint of the figurative, before transforming into basic geometric forms: circle, ellipse, and arc. The work abstracts, without being bound by the tenets of abstract art.

Tom Sommerlatte’s work exudes the ideal of a human world in harmony with nature. Far from naïve, they indulge with intellectual acumen a utopia not found in the world of Jonathan Meese or Neo Rauch. Sommerlatte’s work is free of constraints and boundaries, utterly free, open to everything, light and insouciant.

Ingeborg Toth, Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 2008

Tom Sommerlatte engraves finely interlaced inner structures. He attaches great importance to forming focal points, as he unites floral and organic elements into tendrils and rhythmically varied structures. The titles of his ornamental works (like The Fragile Balance Between Uncertainty and Indifference) suggest that he has more profound ideas in mind.

AS, Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, 1996

For Tom Sommerlatte, the investigation of chromatic energy means a heightened awareness of the intrinsic dynamics of light; in his work, light ever more forcefully captures the poetic capacity of color.

Verena Flick, Wiesbadener Kurier, 1990