Transitions
Interior with candle and broken chair
joshuasullivan.org
Exhibition Statement
It seems that within a person, amidst all the mess of memories and desires we create or discard, there are certain ones that sink deep and are not forgotten. As an artist it has been these hallowed relics of unconscious—with all their marvelous lack of detail—that I have sought to discover and represent.
The concept of transitions for me connotes different stages of transformation. As a memory, a belief, a thought, or a person passes through a limit or an obstacle it emerges changed.
The visual work I was making before coming to YDS was not a pictorial representation of transition, but was the fruit of transition. I pushed memories of my childhood—my father and our ice fishing trips, his whimsical stories and struggles with addiction—through an intense improvisational painting practice. In quiet self-discernment, images and characters would appear to me and I would commit them to the canvas. Their initial appearance would then be worked and reworked until the representation of my memory—the relic of unconscious—felt complete. For more information please visit www.joshuasullivan.org