I am an Australian artist, born into the stunningly rugged landscape of Victoria's Mallee country that my family had farmed for generations.
The dramatic colour of our beautiful Australand landscape has been a passionate part of my psyche since before I could remember. Many of my major works over the years have depicted the aridness of our landscape and how our brilliant Australian light impacts it.
Acrylics, oils, pencils and pastels have been my favoured mediums since I began to paint 42 years ago. Those interim years have been spent honing my expertise in those and other mediums.
I enjoy moving from one medium to another so that my work is not repetitious. In fact, throughout the art world, I am well known for refusing 'to be an art sausage machine' like so many artists who pump out the same cooky cutter art.
I taught art for 40 of those years firstly to my neighbours in the Mallee who travelled long kilometres each week to attend my classes. I was a teacher by profession in the State education systems so in my school teaching and art classes I endeavoured to develop each of my students to the personal best in their chosen mediums and fields. This too went against how most artists taught students to basically copy their work and style.
My nature is one of constant inquiry and endeavour for excellence in all the mediums and genres I paint. Travelling to many parts of the world I absorbed as much knowledge as I could about how other artists achieved their painting excellence. Spending time in South Africa where my husband Paul grew up had a profound effect on me resulting in one of my solo exhibitions in Carlton Melbourne.
My realist art has been enormously influenced by the work of world-acclaimed Canadian artist and friend, Robert Bateman, whose work I came in contact with in 1991 and again in 1996 during trips to Canada. Another influence has been Richard Stone, the Queen’s portraitist, who I met some years ago and to whom I sold two paintings. But most in the early days of painting the Australian Impressionists left their mark on me in many ways, including a friendship with Fred McCubbin's two great-grandsons, Fred and Charles McCubbin. Fred was actually in my Berwick Rotary club and was himself a talented man.
Influencers for my décor and contemporary artwork have from our inspiring Australian artist Brett Whitley, American surrealist Michael Page, English abstract artist Keith K Hopewell, American painter Franz Kline, and Peruvian artist Juan Carlos Zeballos Moscairo known for his bold and vivid abstract paintings.
I have owned and directed two Melbourne Art Galleries in Toorak and Berwick where I had the privilege of promoting the work of many of current Australia’s major artists.
I ran some of Australia’s major wildlife, landscape, floral and equine art exhibitions during that exciting time.
I have been a member of The Australian Guild of Realist Artists, the Victorian Artists Society, a past member of WASA, The Pastel Society of Victoria and The Contemporary Art Society of Victoria. and for 37 years a respected and sought-after art show judge.
My paintings have been featured in numerous art magazines and art shows and in private, corporate and government collections both here in Australia and overseas, in England, France, Canada, the USA, South Africa and Zimbabwe. I have even had the privilege of exhibiting in Paris France.
These days I am content to run my very crowded studio at my home in Clifton Springs and take life a little easier.
You see I still have to achieve publishing my 4 novels, which I have written. over the last x amount of years
These days being a corporate wife, mum to three grown children, step-mum to two young men, and Grand to six beautiful grandchildren, and not being 21 any more takes up much of my time as does my foray into sculpture, rock paintings and having built and maintained my own website www.kerryannesullivan.com since 1996 as well as doing all my own marketing, framing, and digital imaging, the days tend to blend into one another. And servicing my 5 Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Pinterest, and numerous online galleries like Gallery 247, Blue Thumb, and Saatchi.
Time is now my enemy as I can now see it is finite.
But hey,...... Life is good and I am eternally grateful and humbled to have been a part of the world of art both here in Australia and around the world and to have learnt and met so many
wonderfully talented people who also believe in my philosophy of 'Excellence'.
So much to do......................................................................................................................................... so little time.
.