John Elijah Sullivan

Whilst nurturing my artist career, I also worked fulltime in various organisations involved in environmental, conservation and cultural heritage management. In 2017, I retired and finally returned to being a fulltime artist. Since then, I have exhibited in group exhibitions with The Victorian Artists Society (VAS) and Australian Society of Maritime Artists (ASMA). Whilst some of my work is representational and reflects the landscapes of my early life, much of my more recent work is abstract in nature and reflects both subconscious and emerging thoughts and impulses. My inspiration comes from a variety of sources, places and experiences. At times I will reflect on childhood and young adult memories and draw upon significant events from that era of baby boomers, sex,drugs and rock & roll. I am still very much inspired by the environment of my youth which has now become even more enhanced by my current life travelling with our caravan across this magnificent island continent of Australia.

Currently, nothing gives me more creative satisfaction and pleasure than the sheer transcendent joy of just drawing/painting the serendipitous abstract manifestations that appear on a two-dimensional surface. It’s taken me a long few decades to come to the realisation that I mostly find my artistic centre in the moment when the ‘Invisible becomes Visible’, where my own peculiar imagination is free to play and dance across a space of infinite possibilities. My most recent works are a source of both nurture and joy to me. 

My work has been represented in numerous private collections but also in the sculptural collection of the Victorian College of the Arts and the National Gallery of Victoria. The sale of my work (whilst working as a part time artist) has largely been the result of exhibiting in the cafes and restaurants near where I live, the Mount Dandenong Ranges. My community art experience over the years involved working as an Artist in Schools for the Education Department in the early 1980s and various municipal community arts programs. Prior to the 1980s I worked as an illustrator for the then Health Education Centre.