Recently I was being interviewed by a gallery director who was interested in possibly exhibiting some of my paintings. He was concerned that I might be going off in too many directions and didn't have a recognizable "look". He wanted to know how he could go about saying to a customer "that's a Shawn Sullivan", he wanted to know, what is a Shawn Sullivan? He recommended that I do a series of paintings. He suggested that one of my recent paintings "Book with Jawbone" or "Grapes" would be good for that. Shawn Sullivan "bone painter". Shawn Sullivan "grapes unlimited". I tried to explain that what makes my paintings unique is the way that I "see" the objects that I paint. The way that I apply the paint (I believe that my brushwork has become as recognizable as my handwriting). The way that I use color (I was an abstract painter for many years and I think that makes me a little more fearless than your average traditional realist). But even as I was saying these things I could sense that they weren't landing, that they were too esoteric and that I wasn't really nailing my essence in a concrete way.
            So, it kind of got me to thinking about who I am as an artist and why I paint the things that I do. Certain things do re-occur in my work from time to time; brown and white ceramic jugs, bottled condiments, frying pans, colored bottles, silver goblets, to name a few. But I have to admit that I haven't really gone after any one item or setup in particular with the dogged determination that I see in the work of some artists. It's not that I haven't thought about doing a series. Recently I've been toying with the idea of doing some paintings based on the five senses. Another idea is on the four elements. I've begun some sketches, but who knows, something else might come up.
           One of the things that maybe makes my still lifes a little different is that I generally don't pick some objects in my studio and then start moving them around until something clicks. What happens is that I will start thinking about some object that I already have or would like to have. That may be spurred on by the work of another artist that I was looking at or by something in a movie or a novel that I'm reading or just out of thin air. Than I start to make a bunch of thumbnail sketches from my imagination. These can be surprisingly detailed, almost as if I was actually observing the scene. This process might go on for months or even years. Recently, I got this book from the library that featured some paintings by Bastien-Lepage and other naturalist painters. That somehow led to me sketching a still life showing a four pronged pitchfork surrounded by pomegranates and a burlap sack. In my head I can see the splintery and steely quality of the pitchfork really setting off the auburn, fall like hues of the pomegranates with the burlap sack keeping the whole thing grounded. I'm pretty sure that at some point in time I will paint that image. Hard to say when, it might need to percolate for a while. The jawbone and book painting comes from an image that I had put together about twenty years ago. It was a large still life that I had painted in my first real studio and even though I didn't have much training at the time it got into a juried exhibit and won an award. My favorite part of the painting was the part that had the jawbone set on a copy of Gray's Anatomy and I'd been thinking about giving that image another stab for a very long time.
            I think that I'm basically a figure painter at heart. Not that I think of my little pieces of fruit and ceramic as characters on a stage, I don't. I detest anthropomorphism. There's a few artists that I'd like to smack up side of their heads and say "what the heck are you thinking?" It's really an embarassment. Chardin is cringing. But getting back to my point. I really depend on these little ideas that visit me from time to time. They're the reason that I paint. I know that if I focused on one thing and got to the point of doing that one thing really well I probably would be more marketable. But I also know that their are some people who really respond to what I do. They don't know why a plate of strawberries or a cast iron skillet should move them but they do. Art to me is a mysterious and wonderful thing. I'm not trying to put it in a bottle with a label. I respect my muse. I don't take it for granted. Painting is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about before bed. I don't know if this little blurb has come any closer to defining what makes a Shawn Sullivan a "Shawn Sullivan" but that's about as close as I care to get and if that's not enough than too bad.