Christopher Sullivan

Sullivan paints and draws and plays.

A native of Boston, Chris Sullivan was educated in the Boston Public School system, attending schools in Roxbury and Dorchester during Boston’s troubled years of busing. Coming of age in this context, the artist learned to use drawing and creativity to question, explain, explore, and create common ground for people who’s ideas are otherwise at odds. He considers himself neither an abstract nor a realist artist, but simply a painter, creating conditions which cause a viewer to be involved and interested enough to look harder, longer and deeper into relationships. In seeking definition, his paintings and drawings deliberately contrast color, light, spaces, imagery and paint handling to arrive at an unplanned and at times surprising resolution and balance.

Sullivan received a MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and BFA from Massachusetts College of Art. He has taught Drawing at MassArt since 2000, and previously taught at Montserrat College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, The Peabody Essex Museum and Saint Francis Day Shelter, Boston.

Sullivan has shown at the Attleboro Arts Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, South Shore Arts Center, Easthampton City Arts Gallery and Flywheel Gallery, Easthampton, MA, Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, CT, 936 Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, Bowery Gallery, NY, NY, and the Northampton Center for the Arts.