In this conversation, American artist Ryan Sullivan discusses the need for exploration through painting and drawing, reflecting on the history of painting on the occasion of his first solo exhibition in Italy at Palazzo Degas in Naples, as part of Zweigstelle Capitain, the traveling exhibition format by Galerie Gisela Capitain in Cologne, now in its seventh edition.
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
Concetta Luise: Can you tell us about the new works created for your solo exhibition in Naples and explain if there are direct references to the city that hosts them?
Ryan Sullivan: I don’t think specifically Naples, but Italy as a whole. I saw the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 at The Met Fifth Avenue, in New York, while I was starting to work on these paintings, and I found it very interesting to see all the gold and metallics, and how they were integrated into the painting rather than just confined to the gilded edges of a frame. So, I incorporated metallic pigments into this new body of work: aluminum, copper, and gold. In many of the paintings on paper, the paint is made with metallic pigments. I found it beautiful to think about a painting that not only reflects back into the room but also changes under different light conditions.
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
Would you say these works, particularly the paintings, have an archaeological quality?
Yes. I think there’s a relationship, maybe to frescoes. Also, I just thought about that looking around in Pompeii and seeing all the layers being unearthed under the pumice. I do think about layers when I’m making a painting and I think about time too. All painting is put together through layers. The difference is that maybe I’m using those layers more in terms of actions on top of actions rather than the traditional approach, which would be to start with a white ground and build glazes and depth through that. Also, the paintings made of resin are made in reverse. They’re all made horizontally on the floor, but the resin pieces are made in trays. In the tray, it’s more like painting on glass. I’m painting backwards. I’m building layers and light, like the actions: spills come first, and the white, which is behind that, creates the sense of light. You can see in some paintings there’s an off-white in the far background. That’s the final layer, not the first.
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
What’s the importance of the performative act in your work?
I think painting itself is a kind of private performance, and there’s a spectrum. One end of that spectrum might be paintings that come out of public performances, like Yves Klein’s, where the result can live on as a canvas but it’s not necessarily a painting in the traditional sense. It might just touch on the history of painting or use it as a reference point, but I don’t think of it that way. I don’t see these works, with their unorthodox materials and layering techniques, as a way to make a painting I haven’t seen before, or something new. This brings me back to Jackson Pollock and all the abstract expressionists who were trying to find a whole new language and form of art. I’m interested in all of that. It would be naive for any artist, especially American artists painting abstractly, to think they could separate themselves historically from someone like Jackson Pollock, because you can’t.
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
You’ve always been drawn to American art from the 1950s and 1960s. Were there any other influential moments in your art studies?
Ever since high school, I was really interested in that period. It was something that really excited me. Later, when I went to art school, that interest definitely continued but I also became really into photography. I especially loved street photography, the idea of capturing things quickly, snapping the shutter in an instant. The process of going through a contact sheet and maybe finding an image that captured a raw, unscripted moment of life really resonated with me. With the resin pieces I make now, which dry very quickly, I think I’m still chasing that same idea: can I freeze a moment in time that feels alive? Can I hold onto it? That impulse definitely came from looking at photography early on.
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
Are the expressionist gesture and the mark of the hand set aside when creating your paintings?
The hand is there but I don’t want it to be the prominent feature because I think it’s probably very hard to find a lot new in that. I’m interested in using paint in a way that resembles a natural-occurring-sort-of phenomenon like sediment, or water, or things that you see in nature and everyday life. I’m not controlling every single drip, it’s something that has its own logic that we all know because we’ve all seen a splash happen on the sidewalk or on the wall or on a windshield and I’m interested in using those things as a lexicon or a language for my painting..
Ryan Sullivan solo show at Palazzo Degas, Napoli, © Ryan Sullivan, courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Alwin Lay
Let’s circle back to the beginning of our conversation. You referred to your drawings as “paintings on paper”. Why?
I think drawing is more of a mindset than a limitation of materials. In that sense, these works are probably more like drawings than many traditional paintings. They’re very much one-offs, not planned but something that just happens. Amy Sillman once told me: «All of my paintings are drawings». With these works, I’m not even sure if they’re drawings or paintings: I think they’re both. I like working on paper because as I add layers of paint, the water causes the paper to curl and the paint to pool in certain areas. That becomes a catalyst for composition and it forces me to respond to whatever is happening in the moment. I think it’s fair to describe them as drawings, because there’s also this core desire to search, to explore – a kind of inquisitiveness that’s typical of drawing. The paintings in the room are all explorations, and in that sense, I really relate to Amy’s words.
Concetta Luise
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