W&N materials used
Artists' Oil Colour
About Anna Sullivan
Anna Sullivan is a London based painter nearing the end of the final year of the MA Art & Media Practice course at the University of Westminster. Her interest in history has led to development of a performative aspect to her painting practice. Drawn to the Edwardian period that is seemingly far different from our own time and yet a part of the twentieth century she is finding inspiration in the dawn of a new century.
"Through serendipity I came upon the book Landscape Painting In Oil Colour by Alfred East A.R.A. Born in 1844 in Kettering he attended the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris writing his book in his later years at the beginning of the twentieth century. He shares much of his experience as a Painter of Landscape and has become my teacher. At that time a woman painter would have been quite unusual, though not so unusual as a generation earlier; Gwen John was forging a career and Helen Allingham was well known, to name but two. But painting was still widely thought an inappropriate vocation for a woman, particularly painting in oils, though it was becoming more accepted for a woman to demonstrate her abilities by making her own living."
Contact with Alfred East through his teaching has taken Anna out of time. In expressing the making of a creative life Anna lives as a person of the past building her life now as she would have done then. She continues to hone her craft as a Painter while showing that through time people are still people even though culture may change around them.
Anna Sullivan's Work
"Painting, particularly in oils, has endured through the centuries. The materials have not changed significantly since the time of Turner. The Winsor and Newton Artists' Oil Colour I use is much the same as that of a hundred years ago, though the range has altered somewhat."
Anna's past work has been largely abstract from the exploration of the make-up of an individual in the dot paintings to the observation of View From My Window. This attitude toward abstraction is retained in her landscapes in which she can be seen to be developing her own attitude toward the subject.
"It is painting that is at the heart of it for me, I do so very much like to paint. It is the tactility of moving the pigment across the canvas, the consideration of detail, texture and what is available to the viewer. In painting Landscape I am trying to express something of what it is to live in a city and yet yearn for the countryside.
To make a picture of that is a real privilege and, I believe, a fitting subject to hang in the Drawing Room. I should hope to be able to convey a little of the isolation, the solitude that offers relief from urban bustle. A picture can mean much or it can mean little, I always strive to achieve a picture that falls somewhere in between. If the aesthetics are satisfying then I am satisfied though each picture may be a tumult of failures and successes."
"Some have compared my work to the group of French artists known as Impressionists, but I shy from association with one such as Berthe Morisot. It is most flattering but such comparison comes with expectations that others may not find. The time available for me to paint is limited so I believe myself to be some years from comparison with those for whom I have so great a respect."
In taking a creative approach to the making of a life in a similar way to the making of a painting is to truly embrace life as an Artist.
For further information on Anna Sullivan visit:
www.anna-id.co.uk