Liz Sullivan - Different Beauty

Wednesday 6 - Saturday 23 December 2023

Click here for artwork by Liz Sullivan

I have the freedom of using what is around me and the energy of my surroundings and memories to think ‘well, I am painting my interpretation and am aware of but not answerable to the past and to reality’. It is the voice inside my head where reflections, the playing of light on form and shadow and the flat painting surface is not constricted by the one viewpoint. Lines can overlap, colour and rhythms can compete and harmonise and the mind can be an adventure. Liz Sullivan 2023

Liz Sullivan is unashamedly driven to work with the substance of paint to create bold, large-scale artworks charged with optical visual energy. Sullivan is no stranger to the paintings of Cy Twombly, Turner and closer to home, Fred Williams. Her paintings are about mark-making and finding and creating beauty in the unexpected. She makes no attempt to disguise the methods of production involved in her paintings and clearly celebrates painting as the preferred medium of expression.

In Sullivan’s own words

I have never stopped painting even during challenging times in my life. These days I have greater peace of mind and I can confidently take more risks in my work.

Sullivan is a powerhouse of energy, getting up at 5am to start painting in the studio by 6am. Coupled with this great joy and enthusiastic passion for painting is a sense of urgent intensity that brings the paintings forward fast and furious. This is clear by the sheer volume of paintings executed between 2022 and 2023.

(Opening paragraphs of the exhibition catalogue essay written by Kareen Anchen)