Untitled 1990

Frederick Sommer made this drawing from graphite and colored pencil on paper. Sommer was trained in landscape architecture, so he knew how to draw, and his imagery often has a plant-like quality, organic and strange. Here, the careful draftsmanship is undeniable, yet the image itself confounds expectations. The composition has an almost scientific precision, but upon closer examination, you see that he is not representing an actual thing, but rather a construction of his own. He has taken anatomical drawings and re-arranged them into a bizarre composite. By making this exacting image by hand, Sommer has elevated it. He has taken something functional – the scientific diagram – and transformed it through an artistic process into something mysterious and unsettling. It is a virtuoso feat of the imagination. The drawing is not merely a record, but a creation. It reminds us that art is not just about what we see, but how we see.