Steve Sullivan

The concept of value perpetually presents itself in the life and artistic career of Steve Sullivan. From 2008-2011, Sullivan served in the US Peace Corps in Senegal as a Sustainable Agriculture Volunteer, working in food security and community development, and generating visual training materials for multiple projects. It was his move to Somerville, MA in the fall of 2013 that helped continue his journey of reconciling his life as a grassroots farmer with his status in a corporate restaurant at the time. Sullivan’s work focuses on issues of waste, labor, and value - issues in which these two disparate worlds share a lot in common. He received his MFA from MassArt in the summer of 2015. There, his installations strove to metabolize his experiences in food production overseas and remedy them with his position as a server. Through the use of mainly recycled materials, he addressed his estrangement within each of these worlds as they became increasingly integrated within him. His recent series of work still incorporates this concept of value, but delves more deeply into what that means on an emotional and cognitive level. Reconciliation is still a large influence, but it is now an attempt to reconcile a struggle with addiction with a newly sober life – a gracious attempt at understanding what that means. Recycled materials still appear in mixed media compositions, chromatically highlighting the maniacal handwriting that in many ways document a downward spiral; finding value, in yet another extreme change of lifestyle. Sullivan currently lives in Dorchester, MA.