Essie Somma is best known for using color and distinct patterning to form narratives around the subjects of her oil paintings. Pulling from the Surrealist and Psychedelic art movements, Somma’s paintings are nostalgia-driven investigations of the relationship between fantasy and reality, illustrated by weaving two and three dimensional elements together. “I want the stories I create to be so inviting, viewers feel as though they’ve waded into an ocean that is the same temperature as the air. So all-encompassing that they barely realize they’re submerged.”
Somma has built a career as an emerging artist by completing residencies across three continents and exhibiting across four. She received her BA in fine art from the University of California Santa Barbara and attended Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London to study art marketing, business, and history.
