AH Milans Curates #5: BLUE CHEER by Erik Sommer

Erik Sommer BLUE CHEER makes the mechanics of his stained spray paint process visible with unusual clarity. A near-vertical curtain of oxblood red falls in dozens of individual drips from the upper edge of the canvas arriving at a pooled band of blue that settles along the bottom like sediment. In the upper right a burst of gold interrupts the red its edges bleeding into olive green where the two pigments met while still wet.

Three colours do the work of many. The drip pattern is Sommer staging where he directed the aerosol how long he let it fall. No two drips travel identically once they hit raw fiber. The soft bled edge on every one is the canvas answering back. The blue pooling at the base reads as a horizon line a boundary the red falls toward but never crosses cleanly.

Why This Piece Matters

BLUE CHEER is the most direct illustration in Sommer current body of work of the tension he builds his practice on intention staged accident allowed and the raw canvas deciding the final shape of each mark. For collectors it offers the clearest entry point into understanding how a stained spray paint work is made without sacrificing the mystery that keeps you looking.