The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present  the exhibition, Portals, a solo exhibition of two- and three-dimensional work by Sommer Roman. 

Portals is a solo exhibition that brings together various works from three different threads of Sommer Roman’s larger body of work: new textile-based wall sculptures and “Brain Scan” colored pencil drawings are paired with “Cell Portrait” ink drawings.  This grouping of work sheds light on themes and forms that appear and reappear in Roman’s work repeatedly: namely, the biological cross-section and the circle.

In bringing these threads of her work together, Roman re-examines and re-envisions them as portals, portals that draw us into places of deep knowing and innate wildness within ourselves.  Through evocative color, organic forms, materiality, and the universal circular form these unique, multifarious configurations invite viewers back to the realm of interconnectedness, playfulness, the wild feminine, and the body as potent sites of knowing and knowledge.

Sommer Roman was born and raised in California and has lived in France and on both East and West Coasts of the US. She received her BA from UC Santa Cruz (2004) and her MFA from UC Santa Barbara (2014).  Roman maintains a multi-disciplinary art practice and exhibits regularly in group and solo exhibitions.  She currently lives on the Central Coast of California with her two children and teaches in the Art Departments at Cuesta College and Cal Poly.