Tactile Vocabulary: Barbara Sullivan's Frescoes Are Beyond Words
While fresco is an age-old medium, often murals depicting and commemorating religious scenes, Barbara Sullivan's have contemporary themes with a more playful purpose. She considers each object she creates to be part of an extensive “vocabulary” she may subsequently fit into larger tableaux. If the settings look familiar, her singular perspective sets them askew, animals wander indoors and objects, even people, float, fold, and fragment. Often featuring domestic scenes and household objects in imaginative scenarios, there is a humorous pathos to much of Barbara’s work, a serious artist who refuses to take herself too seriously.
