Billy Sullivan

born in 1946 in New York, where he lives, works, and teaches. Sullivan is best known for a diaristic practice that straddles the vitality of fleeting moments and the construction of retrieved remembrance. Raised in New York City, where he attended the School of Visual Arts, Sullivan came of age in the social milieus around Andy Warhol, Max’s Kansas City, and Parisian fashion designer Kenzo, even as he absorbed such influences as Fairfield Porter’s domestic realism and Joan Mitchell’s dynamic pastels. Sullivan’s paintings, drawings, and photographs are saturated with the intimacy of the “muses” in his own life, present and past—friends, lovers, artists, writers, allies and other collaborators, both known and obscure. Noted for their loose, gestural mark-making and unexpected color combinations, his portraits and still lifes draw viewers into the atmosphere as participants rather than mere observers.