DESERTSCAPES, BIRDS IN FLIGHT, ABSTRACT SUNSETS: JORDAN SULLIVAN STRIVES FOR A "POETIC REALITY" IN HIS ART INTERVIEW BY NATASHA YOUNG
Jordan Sullivan is the kind of artist you can’t pin down to a single medium or style. Since 2010, he’s exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Spain, Japan, China, and beyond; published more than 20 art books or zines; been featured in numerous publications, including The Paris Review and The New Yorker; and, somehow, found the time to write a novel. Sullivan is best known for his photography, but he’s revealing his paintings to the world for the first time. “The photographs became my livelihood, but I’ve always been making these paintings that were rougher around 16
MARCH 15, 2020
the edges. I just thought, ‘fuck it,’ after you and I did that show in July (“Return of Polite Society”). This is the work I want to do. This is what gets me up in the morning,” Sullivan told me over the phone from his home in New York. Sullivan’s paintings are visceral, like devotional art or cave paintings. They imbue a little hope into humanity, celebrating the multicultural makeup of America vis-à-vis empathetic explorations in the historical consciousness of the working and immigrant classes, particularly in Detroit and Los Angeles.
WELL-BEING
