David Sullivan
The works I engage with in the studio are framed by the political traditions of Realism and the problem is always the same – to discover the complex set of conditions, the emergent phenomena that make for successful painting – so that an individual work contains its own bounded poetry, its own world, and its own infinity.
Reflections upon being – political history, contemporary culture, the machinery or experience of warfare, and science or technologies all enable different strategies, from the ambiguous to the oblique.
The register shifts, and the themes can drift. From past conflicts or moments of historical optimism, to contemporary social, psychological, and moral anxieties.
Ultimately, painting has conviction if the aesthetic evaluation can determine its truthfulness.
David Sullivan studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design (Canterbury) and the Royal College of Art.
His works are held in public and private collections in Britain and internationally.