A Barbara Sullivan fresco is both strange and familiar, tidy and off kilter, tragic and ebullient. The individual shaped fresco objects work well on their own, but Sullivan often arranges them in narrative, thematic scenarios using the wall as her ground. Her contemporary use of an age old medium places Sullivan’s work firmly in the catagory of painting, yet they are individual bas-relief objects which exist simultaneously as sculpture. Sullivan has successfully bridged these two disciplines, writes Chris Baker for ART NEW ENGLAND. Barbara Sullivan’s work both satirizes and celebrates the monotony of everyday life. Sullivan attended Montserrat School of Art in Beverly, MA and Concept in Portland, ME. She received a B.A. in Visual Art and Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Farmington and an M.F.A. at Vermont College. She has given many fresco workshops at colleges and art centers throughout New England and New York. She taught drawing and painting at The University of Maine at Farmington from 2000 to 2022. In 2007, Sullivan received a Pollock/Krasner Grant and an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Support Grant. Recent group and solo exhibitions include Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, ME, The Maine Biennial of the Portland Museum of Art, in Portland, ME, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME, and Morgan Rank Gallery, East Hampton , NY. “Fresh/Fresco”, an exhibit at Ernest Rubenstein Gallery in New York City, included her work in 2001. Her 2018 Caldbeck installation, SEASONAL SUITE, focussed on imagery from Sullivan’s memories of the childhood, populated with wild and domesticated animals, across the arc of a year. The installation – large scale wall drawings with frescos attached, filled the entire upper gallery, creating an immersive, transportive environment.
Caldbeck presented “CHIIFFOROBE”, a new body of work by Sullivan in the Summer of 2022. Barbara Sullivan e-cat 2022
Read Carl Little’s review in Hyperallergic: Barbara Sullivan’s Contemporary Art of Fresco Painting
Barbara Sullivan “SELECTED WORKS” opened in October, 2022 in conjunction with Sullivan’s retrospective “FORTY + YEARS” at the University of Maine at Farmington Emery Arts Center. Sullivan Selected Work 2022 Catalogue
