The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Art Gallery will present All the Things I Couldn’t Say by Littleton artist Frank Sullivan from June 3 through Aug. 2, 2019. The public is invited to view the exhibition throughout the show’s run and attend the Gallery Reception on Friday, June 7, from 5-7 p.m. with an artist talk at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. This reception is being held in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk. The Reed Gallery is located on the second floor of the University’s Center for Innovative Learning.
Sullivan teaches drawing at UMPI. His show will feature 40 oil paintings and pastel drawings created during the past two-and-a-half years and inspired by the landscape of Aroostook County.
“For the first ten years after moving to Aroostook County, I spent a great deal of time outside exploring the landscape around my home in all kinds of weather, drawing and painting what I saw. At the end of 2016, I made a conscious decision to move my practice into the studio in order to focus on creating images that are less descriptive of specific locations and more about personal, creative expression. However, the forms, colors, relationships, and the delicate balance between order and chaos that I observed in the landscape remain an integral part of everything that I do,” Sullivan said. “Although the inspiration for most of my work comes from landscape motifs, each of my paintings is really a self-portrait.”
Sullivan moved to Aroostook County in January 2006, leaving a successful career as a graphic designer, illustrator, and art director in Massachusetts, to devote himself to the development of his art. He showed an interest in art at an early age, spending countless hours drawing. Through high school, he studied with a local artist, George Lynch.
In 1986, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, where he studied drawing and printmaking with Elizabeth Peak. While at Holy Cross, he was fortunate to be exposed to the work of visiting artists Michael Mazur and Richard Sheehan, whose work had a lasting impact on him. He later attended The American University in Washington, D.C. on a graduate fellowship in printmaking, studied figure drawing at the Worcester Art Museum School, and completed the Graphic Design Certificate program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied 2-D design, color theory and advanced drawing under Maggie Fitzpatrick and illustration under Joe Landry.
Upon arriving in Maine, he converted the old potato house on his property in Littleton into a studio and gallery where he works and teaches. In addition to his teaching at UMPI, he has taught art appreciation and drawing classes at Northern Maine Community College and has conducted numerous art classes and workshops for students of all ages at schools throughout the County. His artwork has been featured in many solo shows and juried exhibitions, and hangs in private collections throughout the United States.
Sullivan writes regularly about his artistic process on the Rainbarrow Studio blog at: http://rainbarrowstudio.blogspot.com. He discusses visual arts and the art-making process in an ongoing series of YouTube videos on his channel “The Artist In His Studio”.
All are invited to view this show between June and August and to come out to the First Friday Art Walk on June 7 and take part in the free reception at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. In addition, this show will be open during the First Friday Art Walk on August 2 from 5-7 p.m. Please follow gallery happenings on the Reed Gallery Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ReedArtGallery.
The Reed Art Gallery is located on the second floor of UMPI’s Center for Innovative Learning and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the summer. The gallery is closed on weekends and University holidays. For more information about this exhibition, please contact Reed Gallery Director Hyrum Benson at (207) 768-9441 or hyrum.benson@maine.edu.