Tuesday Night Lecture Series: Barbara Sullivan

As part of the Tuesday Night Lecture Series (TNLS), Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts presents a lecture by artist Barbara Sullivan, organized by the MFA Painting program.

Barbara Sullivan (she/her) is a painter and installation artist living in mid-coast Maine. She works in the age–old medium of fresco, which she learned when she was the head cook at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, a job she held for eight summers. Her work in centered on the everyday domestic and the natural world.

Sullivan received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 1999 and her BA from The University of Maine at Farmington in Art and Creative Writing, she also attended Montserrat School of Art. She retired from The University of Maine at Farmington, where she taught foundations for 22 years. Currently, she is teaching painting and a course on the origins of materials at The University of Southern Maine. Her fresco workshops include; The Aspen Institute, The Farnsworth Museum, Haystack Mountain School, Pratt Institute, Bowdoin and Colby Colleges, The University of Maine, and Boston University. She is the recipient of many national residencies, internationally at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland.

In 2007, Sullivan had her first solo Museum Exhibition, at The Zillman Museum, in Bangor, ME. In Maine, three Portland Museum of Art biennials, and several biennials at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, ME. In New York, her frescoes have been included in “Fresh Fresco”, at The Ernest Rubenstein Gallery, “Fresco, Off The Wall” at The Hudson Guild Gallery, Safe Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and Bravin Lee Gallery in Chelsea.

In 2023-24 a two person show with Breehan James called Florence/Somerset traveled from The Alice Wild Gallery in Milwaukee, WI, to Buoy Gallery in Kittery, ME and culminated at Spring Break Art Fair, in Los Angeles, CA.

Sullivan is now working on her show opening this summer at Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, ME, also on an installation opening at The Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA in 2028.

Sullivan has received both The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Grant and The Pollock/Krasner Grant. Sullivan is represented by Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, ME (1996-present).

Image: Green Stove with LeCreuset, 2025. Shaped fresco, 44 x 36 x 5 in.

Portrait: Courtesy of the artist