Resembling tectonic shifts and geological evolutions, New York-based artist Ryan Sullivan has produced an exquisite body of work that exhibits an alchemical process through the synthesis of time and material property. Layering oil, enamel, and latex on canvas and allowing the materials to converge on the surface evokes a certain ensitivity to the medium, imbuing an agency beyond the artist’s hand. While his painting might suggest abstract expressionism there is an inherent refusal of painterly gesture and immediacy in Sullivan’s works. As with the present lot, June 18, 2009 - January 20, 2010, Sullivan’s titles refer to the length of his creative process. This emphasis on time and the strata of medium evokes the mature sensibility of preeminent painter Gerhard Richter, who produced a series of textured monochromatic grey paintings in the late 1960s.
Cultivating his own of hands-on process, Sullivan’s interventions with his works are few and far between: “In general my philosophy is to use the physical properties of paint to guide the work. The vast majority of painting follows fairly rigid technical guidelines… if you don’t follow them, paint does unpredictable things; it cracks, changes color, wrinkles.” (Ryan Sullivan, in J. Misheff, “West Street Gallery”, Dossier Journal, July 2010).
2010 oil, enamel, and latex on canvas 40 x 32 in. (101.6 x 81.3 cm) Signed, titled, and dated “RYAN SULLIVAN JUNE 18, 2009 – JANUARY 20, 2010” on the reverse.