COLOR FORMS by Michael Sonnichsen

Show dates: January 6th - January 28th, 2023

Opening reception: Friday, January 6th, 5-8pm

Show Description:

Mike Sonnichsen is an artist who employs geometry and color to dazzle the eyes and evoke wonder and nostalgia. This exhibition of prints and objects offers new ways of seeing the familiar through novel and surprising combinations which delight viewers through the play of color and form.

Screen-printed works with an emphasis on moiré interference patterns vibrate visually and may be challenging yet rewarding to look at. A long-running exploration of relief-printed etched plates printed in seemingly endless tiled combinations evokes the patterns seen in quilts, textiles, and sacred geometry. Lego flat finishing tiles have been cleverly combined with older letterpress printing approaches and technology to create previously unseen arrangements and blended color combinations. These too resemble weaving or textiles while also reflecting play, game boards, and the formal systems of Lego tiles.

As an artist who works constantly in the realm of color printmaking ink, Mike also has a keen eye for the colors of things in our world that often go under-appreciated or unnoticed. Like a bowerbird, he gathers colorful objects (buttons, Melamine dishes, & ice cube trays for example) until the accumulation of them can find suitable sculptural form. Their source or original elements are still recognizable as parts of a whole, yet the peculiar groupings and transformations result in both a new “object” and a revision of how we regard the familiar.

In a season with a shortage of naturally brilliant color, this exhibition creates a space filled with newly wrought but familiar “Color Forms” that resonate symbolically with viewers while challenging and engaging optical sensibilities. It celebrates and reconsiders the colors of everyday materials along with the richly layered color possibilities and tantalizing forms of printmaking.