JIM SULLIVAN

Jim Sullivan, Travelling, 2003, oil on canvas, 8 x 96 inches

Jim Sullivan is exhibiting new landscape paintings at Nancy Hoffman Gallery's Project Space, December 4, 2004 through January 4, 2005.

Jim Sullivan, Bay Waves, 2003, oil on canvas, 6 x 72 inches

Jim Sullivan's paintings are completely invented; all come from his mind and have little basis in reality. While the artist paints trees, mountains, bodies of water, they appear in created visionary lands. Never does he approach the "conventional" in landscape with a view out the studio window.

Jim Sullivan, The Other Side, 2003, oil on panel, 4 x 24 inches

Occasionally Jim Sullivan seeks inspiration from visual sources: his own photos of the sky, passages of landscape paintings, often Hudson River School pieces, so altered as to render the source no longer identifiable. Sullivan strives to make his landscapes recede into deep and distant space, inventing them spatially. All of the landscapes are unpopulated, without any evidence of human presence.

Jim Sullivan, (Red) Evening, 2003, oil on canvas, 8 x 96 inches

There is no sign of civilization, no buildings, no structures, no monuments to humankind. As the artist says of this phenomenon: "I am not sure if they are post or pre-human." He relishes what he calls "this confusion." In many of the works, one passes through several seasons, in others through several weather systems; all of them suggest the passage of time. All of the works invite the viewer to step in close to them, consider the image and its unusual palette.

Jim Sullivan, Late Light, 2003, oil on panel, 6 x 96 inches

Some paintings are based around a color as is Rising Sea II, a study in soft reds, roses and twilight sunset colors. Others utilize the full spectrum of "landscape" colors with a key pitched closer to film than to reality.

Jim Sullivan, Plains, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

Jim Sullivan's invented landscapes are unique in format. Oil on wood panels or canvas, they are horizontal, sometimes stretching the horizon line panoramically to 96 inches in length by 8 inches in height.

Jim Sullivan, Tidal Flow, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

The small landscapes are 3 inches high by 24 inches long. Jim Sullivan's attenuated format provides the viewer with a cinematic-like experience. One has to approach the paintings to take in their small details, their myriad trees, their shining mountain peaks and their meandering sparkling streams.

Jim Sullivan, Inland Sea II, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 36 inches

Painting with small brushes, the artist delights in the details he includes: hundreds of little green bushes, a multitude of wispy white clouds, a cataclysmic storm obliterating half the sky, darkening passages of the painting with an ominous cloud.

Jim Sullivan, Rising Sea, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

These are charged landscapes, never-never lands or ever-ever lands. Jim Sullivan incorporates into the paintings a philosophical life view; a "Rising Sea" seems idyllic in one painting and catastrophic in another.

Jim Sullivan, Rising Sea II, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

Alluring as these paintings are, they have an edgy, restless quality. Like Chinese scroll paintings which unfurl horizontally with a story or narrative in the landscape, Sullivan's paintings unfold horizontally without human narrative, with an enigmatic storyline.

Jim Sullivan, Inland Sea, 2004, oil on panel, 6 x 96 inches

Jim Sullivan was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1939. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design with a European Honors Program in Rome and graduate work at Stanford University, California.

Jim Sullivan, Source, 2004, oil on panel, 4 x 36 inches

Jim Sullivan is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant in painting; American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Painting; a Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting and a Fulbright Fellowship in Painting in Paris.

Jim Sullivan, The Great Lavender Sea, 2004, oil on panel, 5 x 50 inches

Jim Sullivan's work has been shown at Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Center for the Arts, Vero Breach, Florida; Chicago Public Library and Cultural Center; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Indiana Museum of Art, Madison Art Center, Wisconsin; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Museum of Art and History, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas;

Jim Sullivan, Protected Mountain Meadow, 2004, oil on panel, 4 x 43 inches

Museum of Modern Art, New York; New York Public Library, New York; New York State Museum, Albany; Norton Gallery, West Palm Beach, Florida; Oakland Museum, California; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, California; , Queens Museum, New York; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.

Jim Sullivan, The Great Plateaus, 2004, oil on panel, 4 x 43 inches

Jim Sullivan's work is included in the collections of Albany State Museum, New York; The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C.;

Jim Sullivan, Boulder Valley Flood, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24inches

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Miami Dade Junior College, Miami, Florida; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Owens Corning College, Toledo, Ohio; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.

Jim Sullivan, Rising Sea, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

Jim Sullivan has also lectured extensively as visiting artist at colleges and universities in graduate and undergraduate programs.

Jim Sullivan, Approaching Storm/Rocky Cape, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

For further Jim Sullivan information and/or photographs , please call the gallery at 212-966-6676.

Jim Sullivan, Southeaster, 2004, oil on panel, 3 x 24 inches

Jim Sullivan, Ocean Rise, 2004, oil on panel, 4 x 48 inches