Would it be misleading to call Vonn Sumner’s art “Homeric?” The California artist’s “New Ancient Pictures” features paintings of men he calls “warriors” rendered in a blue-free palette partly inspired by the lack of that color in the language of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” But the Morton Fine Art show doesn’t literally portray classical-world combatants. The four warrior pictures are self-portraits of a sort, and feature a man who carries a garbage can and lid as armor and shield, and a broom as his sword. Other paintings have even less connection to heroic legends of the bygone Mediterranean.
Sumner is a representational artist who explores traditional media. These pieces are mostly oils on panels, and a previous Morton show included his temperas. But the artist demonstrates his modernity by working from photos — often of himself — and using large blocks of pure color. He flattens perspective, which suits such paintings as “Pink Theatre,” a depiction of a shallowly articulated building facade. Among the surrealist elements are elaborate masks and, in “Hovering,” a figure who’s prone in midair. The least interesting picture in the series is “Palette 1,” an abstraction that really isn’t one: It’s actually a daubed record of all the reds, grays and blacks that Sumner used to paint this un-blued demimonde.
New Ancient Pictures: Vonn Sumner On view through Nov. 21 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787.www.mortonfineart.com.
Pink Theatre, 24″x24″, oil on panel
Vonn Sumner, Hovering, 24″x24″, oil on panel
VONN SUMNER, Palette 1, 2015, 33″x28″, oil on jutte
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 
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