Kevin Sonmor is well known for his brooding and emotionally charged landscape and still-life paintings that, while appearing to belong to the beloved tradition of the sublime and to the romantic trope of isolation, are more concerned with the history of painting and its various styles. 

Sonmor reuses the artistic vocabulary reminiscent of Dutch 17th still lifes (Jan Steen’s perishable flowers and grapes), the Romantic German landscapes from the 19th century (atmospheric, dense, moody, heroic), and the strong chiaroscuro ever present in works by Caravaggio and early Rubens.  "Almost in defiance of logic, (his) seemingly contradictory applications of paint coalesce into convincing formal elements: earthy terrain, rocks, vegetation, bodies of water…"1 

By amalgamating styles rooted in tradition, Sonmor enhances the power of the painted plane as if to substantiate the undying tradition of painting, while at the same time he undermines it with grand gestures, thick impasto and the application of a warm, emotional palette all geared toward disintegration.  One might say his canvases are mostly concerned with erosion, since forms and objects are overpainted and discarded as easily as the art history.  All is resolved, however, in his intense use of light that imbues his paintings with a near mystical grandeur, allowing the viewer to contemplate how, through the tension between ambiguity and meaning, historic cultures continue to infuse the contemporary condition.