Website Logo PNG
BECOME A MEMBER/LOGIN

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.


Education

I was born in 1951 in Yallourn in the Latrobe Valley. Prior to seeking the artistic life I worked mostly in the building industry in high rise construction. From 1976 to 1981 I studied art formally at both Caulfield Institute of Technology (Diploma of Art & Design) and the Victorian College of the Arts (Post Graduate Diploma majoring in sculpture and illustration). After finishing my art education I worked as an artist on various commissions related to community art, religious institutions and numerous group exhibitions alongside farm and labouring work.


Works by John Elijah Sullivan

IMG_1238.jpeg
Blunts Boatyard Jetty, Williamstown
John Elijah Sullivan
61cm (W) x 41cm (H) x 1cm (D)
Watercolour on paper

Not for sale
IMG_1233.jpeg
Morning fog over a silver sea, South Cape, Tasmania
John Elijah Sullivan
53cm (W) x 63cm (H) x 3cm (D)
Acrylic on canvas
SOLD
Sunset moonlight over Mt Little Joe, Yarra Valley
Sunset Moonlight over Mt Little Joe, Yarra Valley
John Sullivan
23cm (W) x 13cm (H)
Acrylic paint

Not for sale
Prayingatthealtarofthenaturalworld_JohnS
Praying at the Altar of the Natural World
John Sullivan
23cm (W) x 13cm (H)
Acrylic paint

Not for sale
Remember - we’re only passing through
Remember, We’re Only Passing Through
John Sullivan
23cm (W) x 13cm (H)
Pastel paint

Not for sale
SEE MORE VAS ARTISTS
Join our mailing list
Website by:

Acknowledgment of traditional owners.

We would like to pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land on which our building stands, their leaders, past, present and emerging.