Meet William…

William Mark Sommer is a multidisciplinary traveling visual artist who engages with the American landscape through creating a range of projects, books, and installations that utilize photography to illuminate narratives of nature, preservation, and empathy. Over the past twenty years, Sommer’s creative practice has facilitated the development of meaningful relationships with diverse places, ecologies, and communities, while also deepening his self-understanding through metaphorical and metaphysical investigations in photography. Through these ongoing creations, Sommer seeks to foster connections to the land, examine how human actions shape environments, and highlight the unique narratives expressed through place, identity, and connection.

Sommer has exhibited and taken part in many projects across North America and Europe; venues including, the Griffin Museum of Photography, The IPHF Museum, Center For Fine Art Photography, Masur Museum of Art, Center For Photographic Art, Midwest Center for Photographic Art, Belfast Photo Festival, Incadaques International Photo Festival and a solo exhibition with Chalk Hill Gallery; His awards include Life Framer’s First Prize Award Selected by Alex Prager and British Journal of Photography & 1854 Media “Open Walls” and “Decade of Change,” Somer has had interviews and been featured in publications; Analog Forever Magazine, Lenscratch, Another-Earth, Stay Wild magazine, The Griffin Museum of Photography, PhotoKlassik, Lodown Magazine, Booooooom, Classics Magazine, Gelatin Magazine, C41 magazine, Nowhere Diary, Fiiiirst and Subjectively Objective. Sommer has also taken part in artist residencies that have further inspired his practice across America with Kala Arts Institute, Homestead National Historical Park, High Desert Test Sites AZ-West, KHN Center for the Arts and Farwell House, Chalk Hill Artist Residency, Off The Cost and Open Wabi.