Barbara Sullivan Repair: The Workshop

Barbara Sullivan Repair: The Workshop

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Barbara Sullivan’s work draws from the Renaissance medium fresco (the art of painting on freshly spread moist lime plaster with water-based pigments) to portray everyday objects in a slightly humorous and thoughtful manner. Sullivan’s quirky, cartoon like depictions of domestic bliss usually celebrate the mundane world we all inhabit. The works are essentially paintings in low-relief with the colorful objects in the installation playing off of each other.

Repair: The Workshop contains familiar objects such as tools, a chainsaw, a deer trophy and an oversize ball of twine. The depiction is at once painterly yet at the same time a celebration of the rituals of everyday life revealing a certain magic in the commonplace.

Barbara Sullivan currently teaches at University of Maine at Farmington and resides in Solon, Maine. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Portland Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Colby College Museum of Art, and the L.C. Bates Museum. She holds an MFA from Vermont College and a BA from University of Maine at Farmington.