Nightly, Daily: Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan presents painting as an investigative act. Not simply an exercise in representation, but a means of probing the invisible architecture of existence. His works unfold like visual equations; each canvas an accumulation of data points gathered through intuition, observation, and lived experience. Answers, if they exist, remain concealed within the surface—a vessel for questions that don’t always necessitate resolution.

He believes that painting can become a profound way to experience life, to the point where the two become inseparable. This conviction—that the visual can reach beyond the limitations of language—underpins Nightly, Daily. For Sullivan, this origin stretches back to the first marks made on cave walls. It is a lineage of human expression that has evolved alongside our innate capacity to imagine and enquire. His own practice is a continuation of this ancient impulse, translating thought, memory, and emotion into layers of symbols, forms, and colours. They become his vocabulary with one essential purpose: to communicate what words cannot.

Sullivan attempts to traverse multiple dimensions at once. He moves between inner and outer landscapes, mapping the tension and dialogue between conscious reasoning and the submerged territories of his subconscious. Some works resemble a scientist’s chalkboard mid-formulation, dense with interconnected elements: fragments of stories, moments of prophecy, fields of geometry. Others suggest journeys through psychic terrain: descents into chaos, slow returns to light, passages marked by both destruction and renewal.

In one work, a frog ascends the fine line between the conscious and subconscious, dissecting an anatomical head from a children’s pop-up book. In another, a sea dragon drifts through an ocean in outer space. Figures and creatures reappear as recurring markers, each holding fragments of meaning, yet resisting singular interpretation. The artist’s own life becomes entwined with the imagery, as paintings begun in reflection seem to foreshadow experiences yet to come.