The Champion Within
This is a series with fascinating and inspiring people, and what it takes to be the best you can at whatever your endeavours may be.
We will learn from others as to how they have handled themselves in their own pursuits, and so that we can apply to ourselves.
We’ll talk about the necessary support and how important it is, to have the best and appropriate systems around us, so that we can be the best possible. We’ll discuss aspects of ourselves that we can all develop.
This is a show with inspiring people, including musicians, artists, athletes, medical specialists, business entrepreneurs and more…in the pursuit of excellence.
I’m Jason Agosta, a health professional and former athlete, and I'm fascinated in people’s stories, my own involves developing certain attributes over time, but also things that were not done well or were significantly missing.
Join me on The Champion Within in discovering that everybody has a story, and everybody has a message.
@the_championwithin
@jasonagosta
jason@ja-podiatry.com
The Champion Within
Ep.25 Vicki Sullivan: The Art of Realism...Crafting Portraiture Masterpieces
Step into the studio with Vicky Sullivan, a virtuoso of the brush whose realist portraits have captured the gaze of the world. Witness the revival of a timeless tradition as Vicky shares her path to classical realism, a journey that leads us through the hallowed halls of the Angel Academy of Art in Florence. Our discussion paints a vivid picture of the dedication behind each meticulous stroke, the historical threads from Michelangelo to Caravaggio that weave through her craft, and the support systems that foster such artistic mastery.
Navigating the business of beauty, Vicki imparts wisdom on the practicalities of thriving as a professional artist. Our dialogue reveals the delicate balance of art and economics. As we traverse the varied landscapes of the art world, from plein air escapades to the emotional resonance of masterpieces, our conversation underscores what it truly means to live and breathe one's passion through every pigment and portfolio.
We conclude with the very soul of portraiture, exploring how an artist like Vicki channels the human essence onto canvas, striving for a realism that transcends mere replication. You'll glimpse into the artist's flow, the persistence required to capture a subject's character, and even the honor of having her work slated to accompany astronauts to the moon. Join us for a session that not only celebrates the artist's journey but also illuminates the indelible mark of portraiture in the annals of art and on the lunar surface.
vickisullivan.com
@vickisullivanartwork
Vicki Sullivan: Painting Realistic Portraits
https://youtu.be/v_rlbWaLLmk?si=6diQnY9vl89Ba6T-
angelacademyofart.com
artrenewal.org
lunarcodex.com
@jasonagosta
@the_championwithin
Welcome back to the Champion Within where we speak with fascinating people with inspiring stories. I am Jason Agosta and I have to say thanks to you all for your amazing feedback and, most of all, for tuning in. A major part of this show is trying to maintain some diversity of what is presented and in keeping this going, I met with artist Vicky Sullivan, based on the Mornington Peninsula here in Victoria, australia. Portrait artist Vicky Sullivan's paintings have won awards in Australia, usa, uk and China and are held in private and public collections worldwide. In 2021, vicky was awarded the title of Living Master by the Art Renewal Centre, the largest international foundation for promotion and education of realist art.
Speaker 1:Vicky studied painting in Australia and at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, italy, where she is also taught For one of her works. Vicky had the honour to be commissioned to create a posthumous portrait of the Reverend John Flynn, the founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service here in Australia, and I have to say this resonated with me a little, as I'd worked for the Flying Doctor Service in the past. Vicky studied in Florence and, as she discusses, there is in recent times, a resurgence in realism painting Described as a living master. Vicky Sullivan, thanks for joining me. And, vicky, I love how you mentioned that you were travelling through Italy and saw a Romero Sanchez painting and it was at that moment of I want to do that. That was so inspiring for you. I love the way you described that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, when I went to art school, you know, back in the 80s, and realism was really discouraged and everything was totally going and conceptual. So and if you mentioned that you wanted to do realism, you'd be pretty much scoffed at you know Right, okay. Just not appreciated at all in the Australian sort of art scene.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that went on for quite a long time. But in Italy and a few other places around the place, even a few places in Australia as well, but not as much. But there were a few guys that were really interested in that way of painting, in painting realism, like the old masters, and they were really interested in finding out about those skills which had almost been lost because the whole world had gone into modernism after the war and totally rejected anything to do with beauty and things like that.
Speaker 2:I mean, before the war things were sort of more. The philosophy was quite different. The philosophy on art was more Aristotelian, so it was all about beauty and going for the highest thought and striving for the highest thing, and all of that.
Speaker 2:And then after the war, when modernism came in, they just threw all those ideas out and it became more Kantian philosophy. And Kantian was sort of like well, it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be beautiful, it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be new. Right, and that's all. It has to be good, it doesn't have to be beautiful, it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be new right and that's all it has to be.
Speaker 2:Doesn't have to be, you know, in any way skillful or anything new and different. It must be good sort of in that. And those a whole bunch of Kantian philosophers, came basically to America in the beginning, apparently, and into the universities and they basically took over the whole art movement and art became more of a commodity. So it wasn't you buy a painting because you love it, it was more about you know you're buying it because it's a commodity and it's an investment and it kind of made the switch along with.
Speaker 2:The whole thing about doing realist painting is that it takes a long time it takes many years to learn how to do it well, it takes a long time to paint it and so you know it's not a money-making churning out units kind of thing yeah when you get into abstract, you know right.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be training for years yeah doesn't take long for jackson pollock to throw a bit of paint around, you know, and and you can churn them out and sell them like widgets for a lot of money if you hype them up enough, because it's all about what you, you know anyway.
Speaker 1:So just describe to me, just go back a little bit on that point, just describe to me exactly what the realism means. Excuse my ignorance, but this is for others as well.
Speaker 2:Realism is painting something that looks realistic. Basically, you know it's representational, so you're painting the life as it is, you know.
Speaker 1:And this is the portraits and still life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and landscape Anything that looks like what you're painting basically.
Speaker 2:But you know, it was very big. The old masters, you know, spent years perfecting their techniques and each, each generation, learned from the one, the masters before, and added to it. And then, you know, um, and and. Then when modernism came in, pretty much they threw the baby out with the bathwater. My philosophy is that there needs to be perhaps two streams in universities, so if you want to go in and paint abstract or conceptual, you go that way, but there's another stream where you can actually go and learn how to paint realism, because that's what I wanted to do and it just was not available to me. There weren't even teachers who could paint it at, you know, at the schools, like people just didn't have a clue. And then so in florence, around the 80s, I guess, there were three guys, so there was daniel graves, michael john angel and charles cecil, and they started the florence academy and basically they 80s, I guess there were three guys.
Speaker 2:So there was Daniel Graves, michael John Angel and Charles Cecil, and they started the Florence Academy and basically they had a few students.
Speaker 2:They began with just a few students and they were really a couple of them had learned from Pietro Anagoni, who's famous for his portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and he was one of the most famous portrait painters in the world and a couple of them trained under him. And then they started researching how to teach that and they came across the Bargue drawings, which Jean-Leon Jerome and Charles Bargue perfected this teaching method, where they started off with all these lithographs, so the students would be copying these drawings to perfection and learning to draw very basically, you know, and then going from the Bargue drawings to actual casts, plaster casts, and copying them and learning to draw accurately and at the same time, drawing from the life model every day. And so they started up the Florence Academy and then they sort of had a slight divergence, but still very similar, and they all went off and started their own academies and they were basically the only people doing this French academic.
Speaker 1:These are the very few people you were talking about that have just maintained the master's techniques.
Speaker 2:Yes, those skills.
Speaker 1:So it's just like being that sort of era of that sort of painting has been hanging by a thread. It sounds like.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, A few people have created this resurgence. Yeah, and then this was before the internet, so you didn't even really know about them, unless you knew someone that knew about them you know, Okay, word of mouth.
Speaker 2:You couldn't look them up on the internet because there wasn't one back then. And anyway, they slowly gathered students and then they had their own academies and more and more people like me who'd gone through art school and came out totally disillusioned because what they wanted to do just was not available. And if you're not into conceptual or abstract art, you know, and you're forced into something that you don't really want to be part of that's just not your thing.
Speaker 2:It was pretty frustrating. So there were so many people like me. I mean, I used to look at those realist paintings and just go, how the hell did they do this? This is like magic to me, but it's actually a process, and it's a process that can be learned, and so I was really lucky to see that painting in Venice, and I went in and spoke to the woman who ran the gallery and I said, wow, this is so amazing. And she said, oh, this is Romero Sanchez, and he went to the Florence Academy of Art and that was the first time I'd heard of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, and.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I want to paint like that, this is what I want to learn, you know, okay. And I was like, oh, I want to paint like that, this is what I want to learn. You know, I'd been getting some private lessons doing landscape and stuff, but not this amazing you know method that I yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was like a whole world had opened up. And I went back and by then there was the internet and I looked it up and I just went oh, I think it was like $14,000 a year, which to me was just like impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My heart just sank. And then I sort of was tossing around the idea and I thought, well, maybe I don't need to go for a whole year, maybe I can just, you know, go for a semester or whatever. And so I came back to Australia and saved up for three years to be, able to go and do a trimester.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Well, there's something in that, though, isn't it as far as like just having a, I suppose, following your passion We've spoken a lot about this on this show, about persistence and determination, but really following what you're fascinated in and making it work, yeah, I love that. Can I just take you back a little bit? You just mentioned something, then, about the whole process yep of the painting that you're doing or the portraiture?
Speaker 1:is that when you speak of that? Is that about the layers that it takes to get to the end? Result is like layer upon layer do you mean learn?
Speaker 2:yeah, I do paint layer upon layer, but do you mean like learning the process?
Speaker 1:yeah, the process of what you do is it? Like you know, you obviously yeah, the process of learning.
Speaker 2:it took a lot because you know you got you going in and you're drawing for at least six hours a day, drawing and painting six hours a day from the live model, and you're learning anatomy and you're learning accurate drawing, you're learning gesture and composition. There's a whole lot to it, but there's nowhere in Australia that actually teaches like that and that's why in the 19th century, everyone used to go to Paris to go to the Académie Julian or you know there were a few academies in Paris, and that was, you know, Americans and Australians, and everyone went there to learn how to paint In the 19th century.
Speaker 2:To me, that sort of training became the best era of painting, in my opinion, just because they could draw so well, you know Right okay, and good drawing is. To me is the difference between can be the difference between a really great painting or a very mediocre painting.
Speaker 2:You know, if you've got really sort of um, not very sophisticated drawing or drawing that looks wrong, you know it's so much more um fulfilling to me to sit when I'm looking at paintings and that, just to just go, wow, look at how he drew that out. You know, look at that. He really knows what he's doing. That that's so convincing, you know. Yes.
Speaker 1:I understand that. You've just reminded me of a couple of things. I remember being in Bologna, going to this university and doing a tour, and the woman who was taking us through took us to this tiny auditorium where Michelangelo would go, yeah, with the medical student. He'd sit there with the medical students and study the cadaver, that's right. And then I also remember I think a little bit later being I think it was in Florence and there was this exhibition of Caravaggio paintings. Yes, and they had the X-rays of the paintings that were sort of how can I say?
Speaker 2:The layers.
Speaker 1:It showed you the layers of how they'd painted. It was just astonishing. I don't know much about this at all, but it blew me away. So when you talk about, oh, it's just so good to see that when it's really good and it meant so much to you, I get that, because when it I don't know something like that, I've never forgotten. As far as the depth of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. You're standing on the shoulders of giants, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Well, yes, and hundreds and hundreds of years. That's what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:You know, since the Renaissance, when things really started happening for painting and observational skills and things. You know, there's hundreds of years of learnings and teachings passed on from master to pupil yeah and um and to think that they were almost lost, those skills you know, had they not? Been captured and, you know, had not had people not passed on that knowledge down, we we could have lost all of that knowledge?
Speaker 1:Yeah, by a few people who started an academy. And there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then you know. So I ended up going not to the Florence Academy, but to the Angel Academy, which is run by Michael John Angel. Which is where At one point he was the most famous portrait painter in the you know, in the world, I think right anyway, he's an amazing man and and so we did that whole traditional way of um learning.
Speaker 2:But but when I went, because I had to save up for three years, I managed to do a whole year's work in one trimester. And because as soon as the school's open, i'd'd be waiting at the door for, you know, the door to unlock and I'd be in there and then they'd be kicking me out at night and a whole lot of the young students would come in and go. How come you're always here? I was like, because I had to scrimp and save to get here, you know.
Speaker 1:My mother and dad couldn't have afforded to send me. And where was that academy, the Angel Academy? It's in Florence, in Florence.
Speaker 2:So I got to live in Florence, which was really fantastic, and then I came back and saved up for another three years and then went back.
Speaker 1:Oh, really Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I got invited to go back and teach, not at the academy but to teach in Italy and stuff. So it was a real life-changing thing to put yourself out of your comfort zone Beautiful. Yeah, and Florence is. You know, it was magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Italy.
Speaker 2:You did mention to me how this, the realist painting market, is really sort of difficult or there's a lack of understanding here compared to the us or europe you're saying how the us would have more of a take on it or more of an understanding, maybe because there's so many more people in america, but there does seem to be a lot more opportunity and a lot more appreciation for realist painting in America. I mean, they have got millions more people than we do, but they have a very strong basis and, same with Europe, they're very into realism as well, I guess because they've grown up especially in Europe. They've grown up with it in their Wheaties, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, it's all around you.
Speaker 2:It's all around them especially in yeah, spain and Italy and everywhere in Europe really, but America as well. They've got a very strong Western art scene and they've got the Art Renewal Centre, which is the biggest foundation for realist paint art in the world. They've got the Portrait Society of America and there's so many conventions that are all supporting realism and so many bodies that also support it. You know, like organisations and things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a bit of lack of that here I think so, and particularly in Melbourne Well, in Melbourne I was just telling you that every other state has got a not every other state, but most of the other states have got a portrait prize.
Speaker 2:So Brisbane's got one, Perth's got one, Sydney's got the Archibald and about half a dozen other ones yeah so they've got the Kilgore in Newcastle, they've got the Shirley Hannon in Bega, like these are really big national portrait prizes, sure, and there's another one, oh, and they've also got the Doug Moran, which used to be in Melbourne, which is the biggest prize money of all. Canberra's got the Darling Portrait Prize, even Townsville's got a portrait prize, but Melbourne doesn't have one. So if anyone's out there and they've got big bucks and they want their name to go down in history like Mr Archibald for hundreds of years, melbourne could really do with a portrait prize, Really do with it?
Speaker 1:Yeah well, a lot of people would have heard of the Archibald, there's no doubt, oh the whole country I've been to it a couple of times and most people talk about it, you know, after they're blown away by it. But yeah, it sounds like a lot more could be done. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we could have at least one Melbourne Portrait Prize, and it would be good if it did come out of the National Gallery, of course.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you have also exhibited globally as well, and, as I understand, new York and Barcelona are housing your paintings presently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I have had work exhibited in New York and in Barcelona at the European Museum of Modern Art, which is this amazing, huge museum absolutely dedicated to realist art.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's right in the heart of Barcelona and it's a huge building and the paintings and the sculpture in that museum are just knock-your-socks-off stuff. It was really great and I've had about, I think, four different paintings in exhibitions there, which is pretty nice. Nice to be part of that, you know, to feel like part of that. And in New York I've had work in a couple of galleries and one painting which is in a collection there was exhibited at Sotheby's in New York as well. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and in Italy I've exhibited in Italy and, yeah, a few places around the world and it's you know, and I find that a lot of my sales are about half of my sales are international.
Speaker 1:Is that right Okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, the one thing you have to describe to me how this came about and what it's about is the fact that one of your paintings which I love, when I was checking it out, was the Moon Goddess. Yes, checking out with the moon goddess became part of the Lunar Codex, which is part of NASA's Artemis program to take time capsules to the moon. Yeah, and your moon goddess painting was part of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of those time capsules?
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's quite an interesting thing to read about how there was this system, or I can't remember the person's name.
Speaker 2:Dr Samuel Peralta.
Speaker 1:Samuel Peralta Canadian physicist. That's right, and he started this program in conjunction with NASA, as I understand, where he would take works of artists, writers, musicians in time capsules and launch them from Earth. And you are one of those people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So he had this idea over COVID to put artwork and literature and poetry onto a tiny little nano fish microchip to go up to the moon and be interred in a time capsule so that, in hundreds of years, generations to come would look back and see that, even though humans were going through plague and climate emergency and wars and all sorts of crazy stuff, that they still made time to make beauty Right. And so that was really lovely to make beauty.
Speaker 2:And so that was really lovely. And so, yeah, the moon, goddess and a few other pieces were on that nanofish in the first launch. So it went up, and then they had a problem with the fuel, and so we were among the first women to ever have their art in space and the first Australians to have their art in space. But it didn't make it to the moon. It orbited and then it crashed into the Pacific, which is a shame. But he reckons he's going to send it up again, and the next launch was November, but now they've extended it to February next year.
Speaker 1:So what happened to the moon, goddess?
Speaker 2:Well, she's still he'll. He'll load her onto nano fish chip again and send her up in this february launch. Yeah, it's not an actual painting that's going, it's just a digital file on the ship, a tiny little you can imagine, and and yeah, in conjunction with NASA. The one that crashed was the Peregrine.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Astrobiotics, that's who it is. It's astrobiotics and NASA are making these spaceships to send up. And yeah, and then Nanofish is this special little teeny, weeny, weeny, weeny little microchip that you know, probably like a SIM card in your phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, fantastic, that's great, You've been part of that. It's just pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was just coincidental it's just the gallery that I'm in, one of the galleries that I'm involved with, which is now in Miami, is called 33, contemporary temporary, and so, um that this curator that um organizes that, dd menendez, she does all these publications, so when you submit your work and it gets into a show she'll do like a catalog, and so he was loading all of those catalogs onto the nano fish and I just happened to have work in quite a few of those catalogs and that's how that came about. It was just a random coincidence.
Speaker 1:That's great, I have to say. Also, your website's fantastic to look at and you do have a link or it's very easy to see. You've got a video that you discuss your portrait instructional video on the website which is vickisull V-I-C-K-I sullivancom, and I'll put all the links in the show notes. But the portrait instructional video is an educational sort of piece for people who want to learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it goes through my whole process of how to paint a portrait and you get the reference image to copy it too and you can paint along while you're watching. And the good thing about recording it is you can rewind and watch it again if you don't quite understand what you're learning. But I've broken it down into several stages and basically it's five days of painting, all broken down into stages, and each stage sets up your painting for the next layer, because you sort of do it in layers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay fantastic and that was really nice. I got invited by Eric Rhodes, who runs Streamline Publishing in America and he also runs Plain Air Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine and he's got a video company and all these fingers and he runs conventions and he takes art trips all over the world. He's a whirlwind of energy and he invited me to go to America and make this video with his company. So that was a big bit of a hoot.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting, but what I'm really interested in is you, and one of the things that you've spoken about is persistence and determination in the whole journey that you've had from back in the 80s, as you mentioned going to Florence a couple of times to study and then teach. But clearly, and we all know, life as an artist is difficult play, music, painting, whatever you choose or whatever is your passion but you have spoken about persistence and determination and I can see that that is obviously been a big thing to maintain and uphold for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. For me it's been the only way to achieve anything in my life is, you know, slogging away at it, slogging away and don't give up, just chip away, you know yeah um, you know, don't, um, don't bite off more than you can chew, but constantly put yourself out there a little bit further and further, like out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1:Has that been difficult, though for you like? Personally to put yourself out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes more than others. Yeah. Like that trip to America was pretty full on for me.
Speaker 1:Right. Why is that?
Speaker 2:I guess because I was flying a really long way from home and by myself to America with all those guns, to Texas. It kind of freaked me out a bit, because I'm not used to that.
Speaker 1:You did too many movies, Vicky.
Speaker 2:I didn't even see a gun, thank goodness. I did hear some gunshots, though, when I was in New York. That was pretty different to home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there was a persistence there because I know that you used to do a lot of silk painting and clothing and you know sell garments at markets and things like that. And here you are now, like years later, doing this extraordinary portraiture. So obviously along that journey you had a vision, since you saw that Sanchez painting yeah and the journey has involved sort of morphing into one thing into another, like producing different products or paintings along the way. And here you are, so yeah yeah, that's what you know.
Speaker 1:Where you are now is being determined to follow what you were passionate about years ago and what you saw in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that was what I always really wanted to do. It's just that there was nowhere to that. I knew of where I could learn that in Australia.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that's why you know, going over to Italy and seeing that painting, and you know thinking, oh, there, italy, and seeing that painting, and you know thinking, oh, there must be schools that teach this. You know that there must be schools and there were, there were a few schools, you know, and that was amazing to be able to find them.
Speaker 1:And then to you know, and then that was yeah, and then I just had to come home and save up because it wasn't but you immersed yourself in it as a student and then as a teacher, which is amazing. Yeah, the other part of this which I'm interested in is you have also um described or mentioned that, seeking good business advice, the journey of what any of us do and I think it's fair to say, most of us who you know you get really passionate about what you're doing and you don't care about the numbers side of things and business things. I mean, I've been like that forever and always will be, and I know so many people are the same, like guitarists. And you have spoken about seeking good business advice, which is interesting coming from someone in your field.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, it didn't come easy to me, of course, being an old hippie.
Speaker 1:Out of the comfort zone again.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. I have found it very helpful to talk to people who are in business, who know about business you know, because I didn't. We did get a little bit of business advice from the maestro. You know he made us realise. Or you know he would talk about how. You know you have to make enough to cover your living expenses plus your taxes, you know, and so you have to charge enough to be able to do that was, you know, being an old hippie, I used to give my work away a lot, or you know.
Speaker 2:I didn't value my own labour and one of the things you know. I was talking to him about that and he said well, you know, not only are you letting yourself down, but you are letting all the other artists down as well as well. Yeah, I get that and that made me sort of pick my socks up then, because I realized it wasn't just me everybody that I was letting down in a way, because you know, if you're going to make a living at it, you have to be able to pay your living expenses.
Speaker 1:Tell me on that night, is it expensive to paint what you paint the portraiture, like the paints and equipment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, because I'm buying the best materials and the best paint. It is expensive.
Speaker 1:It can be yeah.
Speaker 2:You try and save where you can. Basically, paint is really expensive, so I'll pick up my dobs of paint, I put them in a little takeaway Chinese takeaway container and freeze them, and then I can pull them out the next day and use them again. So I'm not wasting. I hate wasting things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, good, so you know that's one way of saving it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but it has been really interesting getting advice from friends. Like one of my friends, she always says you know if you can get free ink and we call it frink you know if you can get free? Ink and we call it frink, you know, yeah, so if you can get a write-up or a podcast, even, some exposure, yeah it's free advertising, isn't it? You know so you, you, you want to be able to um make the most of those opportunities that come your way in that department.
Speaker 1:You know yes, it's department. Yeah, so it's being accessible, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It's being accessible. And the other thing that I think is a good motto is that good luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So if you're an artist, say you want to have really good photos of your work, you want to have a good body of work to show people, and then, if an opportunity comes and you want all your details of all the artworks and the measurements and everything all easily accessed. So if people say, send me a list of paintings, you've got it all there and you can do it. It doesn't take you three days to get the information yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And the other?
Speaker 2:thing that I try and do is deal with things immediately, you know, don't put them off for three days. Deal with them and get them off your, off your shoulders, yeah yeah, this is um.
Speaker 1:It's a new world, isn't it it? With the online, you know advertising, or we all have our website and we're all linked to this and that and we have links from our sites to, whatever we do. I mean, that has obviously become a really important part of, you know, the artist world, like for anyone, else. Yes that's right. Has that made it easier?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it has. We're not reliant so much on the gatekeepers, which are the galleries. In the old days, if you didn't have a gallery, no one got to see your work. Now you're your own marketer. In some ways it's easier. In other ways it's harder, because you've got to learn all the technology.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and that's a scramble.
Speaker 2:But you know, I also have a bricks and mortar gallery who represent me in Sorrento and they've been just fantastic and they've been selling a lot of my work and I'm sure it's because they love my work and so when they talk to people about it they're really enthusiastic and, um, and that's been going really well and it's really lovely because it's in Sorrento and that's where I grew up and beautiful.
Speaker 1:I love that and it's just down the road, so I don't have to drive very far hey, when I'm talking to you, I'm thinking of my travels in the past and the artworks that I've seen, which have earmarked or really been a stamp on, I suppose, my travels in the past. They're the things that I can remember most, like seeing a Benigni sculpture in Rome, or seeing the Caravaggio's in Rome, or seeing the Caravaggio's so that you know I'm not very knowledgeable and don't have the greatest appreciation for painting and arts, but when I think of it, those times have really been stamped in my brain, as far as you know where I was and when it was, which is amazingly powerful when you really consider it. But what I want to ask you is what does it do for you? What does your painting do for you within yourself and personally?
Speaker 2:oh gee. Well, it's very rewarding and, um, you know, different different things give different things. So I also not only I spend a lot of time doing portrait commissions and studio work for galleries and for exhibitions and things, but one of the things that I also do, when it's not very windy especially is I go out with my easel and paints and paint plein air. So I'm painting from life, go out to the beach and paint the scenery from life and that's really wonderful and really rewarding. And it's not like a photograph, because it's a whole experience. You're painting an experience of being there. You're painting what it you know, and and if I look at any of those paintings, I can be back in that place and hear the gulls and hear the waves and so good, yeah, so that that's the power that I suppose I was touching on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic yeah and when you are painting again. This is, I suppose, personal to you is what about your frame of mind? I'm interested in what is happening either before, during and even after. Is there a thought process, or can you recall times where you just completely zone out like an athlete and you're?
Speaker 2:just doing your thing.
Speaker 1:There's a flow to it, as we say.
Speaker 2:Yep, yes, the flow states are really good. You know, some paintings come really easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That one of my two nieces, tani and Goldie. That's for me, that's the best painting that I've done. That's the one I'm happiest with why, and I did that so easily and in my head I'm I'm just like I can't believe, I can't believe this is turning out so so good, like you know, and I'm doing it so easily. I'm really getting it. I must be really getting it, you know. And then the next painting is like a total struggle.
Speaker 1:Just stressed out, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, you just never know what's you know. I don't know why that worked so well and things just seem to work.
Speaker 1:Can you reflect on that when you look at what you've done, or if you recall right now that there's times where there's been a tension and it hasn't come together? Or you've just gone into the studio just like totally chilled out and just like let it rip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just never know what it's going to be. But quite often I suppose, when I'm trying to push myself in a new direction like I've been trying to use more texture and things because I want my photos, I want my paintings to look real but not like photos, and everyone says, oh, it looks just like a photo, but if they saw it in real life it wouldn't look like a photo because it's got brush strokes and I don't.
Speaker 2:I want it to look like a, I want it to look real, but I want it to have texture and brush strokes so people can tell it's paint.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And photos can be very flat, you know, whereas paintings you can actually make them very three-dimensional and atmospheric and that's what I'm after. So when I can get my painting to that point and it feels like those people are just about to walk out of that painting and into the room, that's when I've got it, you know. That's when I know it's successful.
Speaker 1:So, looking at your works, the one thing I sort of could see that it is. I suppose what I thought was this is bringing the character out of the canvas. That was my thought. Yeah, good, that's how, like I don't know how it was striking to me so striking yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good, because that's yeah, I do try for that, you know, I really try, and you know, get the essence that I'm seeing, you know, and put it on the canvas. Yeah, and I also want it to look like them. I want that. You know, it's a portrait. Yeah, and I also want it to look like them. I want that. You know it's a portrait. I want it to look like the person I'm painting. I don't want it to look all you know abstract or anything.
Speaker 1:Can you try too hard? Someone who's going to look up your portrait instructional video on your website. Can you try too hard to make it work?
Speaker 2:Well, the good thing about oil paint is it's very forgiving, so you can always paint over it if you get it wrong. Um, can you try too hard? I don't know. I'm always trying too hard to make it work. You know, it depends on what day you ask me that. I think some days it works really well and I just think, oh, I'm really'm really getting it, this is easy. And then the next day it'll be just like oh, this is so hard, yeah okay, I just can't get this right. What is it? You know?
Speaker 1:Tell me, is there a pattern that you have on that note, like in trying to work out what's good and what's not? Particular day, do you have a sort of pattern of I don't know what you sort of do?
Speaker 2:with yourself.
Speaker 1:I mean, like you know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like before.
Speaker 1:I jump in the water in the morning. It's like a total breathing process.
Speaker 2:Or do you just walk into the studio and just go right, okay, let's go, yeah, yeah, but usually I sort of I have about seven paintings on the go because they take a long time to dry in between layers and sometimes you know you can't paint on it in between. It's got to be either wet or dry. It's got to be wet into wet or wet over dry. It can't be tacky.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It can't be in the middle because you won't get a good consistency to paint it to sort of thing. Yeah, so I don't know if it's the moon.
Speaker 1:You know the phases of the moon, or who knows it's right I really love the way you just bring in that the sort of um, I suppose, the journey of persistence and determination, and you've just, like, followed your passion. You've spoken about seeking good business advice, which is probably not heard of from too many people in the art world, or painters, or musicians, and then obviously those really interesting things like the Lunar Codex and, you know, getting your painting on your little SIM card and taking it to the moon. It's so diverse and so interesting and I really thank you for joining me and coming on Champion Within. It's so nice to have you on.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Well, it is really nice being a portrait painter too, because you meet the most interesting people from all different walks of life. Oh, yes, and that's pretty fascinating, you know, because really I live this sort of very quiet little life on my own in the studio, but then I get to meet all these really interesting people and I've been entering the Archibald. I just sent my 13th entry off and I've never gotten in yet. But I'm persistent about that too, and I'm just going to keep entering until I'm 100, and then for sure they'll have to let me in when I'm 100.
Speaker 1:So what's coming up then? Can you talk about what paintings or portraits you're going to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the painting that I just sent off is of an Indigenous artist called Fiona Margaret Clarke and I've painted her with one of her designs beside her and it's called Walk About Wickets and she's related to. Her great-grandfather and her great-uncle were in the first Australian cricket team that went to England and they were all Indigenous and they went to England and beat the English at cricket quite a lot of the time half the time or more.
Speaker 2:And then so this design that Fiona has done Walkabout Wickets is worn on all the cricketers' uniforms on special days, and now all the umpires are wearing it, and I think the women are wearing it on their uniform as well. And then recently there was a great big banner with Walk About Wickets design over the MCG Okay, and she's just the loveliest woman, and so when she came to see it, she actually got tears in her eyes when she saw my painting, which to me is a mark of success if you can move people emotionally.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So there's that one. So I'm hoping that will get into the Archibald for my first time, but I'm not holding my breath.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Great history to it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Great history to it too. Yeah, amazing, and I'm trying to paint more Indigenous people because throughout history, if you look at European portrait painting, there are very few darker skin coloured faces in portraiture over the years and I think it would be really nice to redress that a bit and get some more Indigenous faces in the National Portrait Gallery and, you know, and just in collections and museum collections and galleries and on walls to honour our Indigenous brothers and sisters and Deborah Cheatham as well, so that's in a public collection, the big one of her, the Aboriginal opera singer.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so where's that one?
Speaker 2:That's in Ocean Grove in a public collection. And then they commissioned me to do the John Flynn Because they really liked the Deborah Cheatham one.
Speaker 2:And there's another one in public collection called in the Art Renewal Centre Collection in America, and that's a really big foundation, it's the biggest foundation in the world for the promotion and education of realist art, and they bought that and that was the one that was exhibited at Sotheby's, because the Art Renewal Centre Collection for that year got exhibited at Sotheby's in New York as well as well as in the meme in Barcelona. Yeah, it must be such a different world to the sport world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's interesting how, just touching on you, how there's always parallels, there's always parallels you can draw upon, like you can run a race and completely zone out and you wouldn't even know where you are until you wake up at like two laps to go and it'll be the best race of your entire life, because you were just so chilled and relaxed and in the zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I imagine that's what you sometimes experience is falling into the canvas yeah, yeah, I just lose hours and hours yeah, that's so cool all the time and, uh, you did mention to me there's another painting you have coming up I'm off to to the Writers' Festival on Sunday and I'll be meeting Thomas Mayo, who's a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and was a very big voice in the yes campaign, and he's speaking. He's a writer as well and he's speaking at the Sorrento Writers' Festival. So I'm going in for that and then we're going to come back here and I'll do a sketch and get some photos for the next year's Archibald entry. So I'm already planning ahead because I'm such a slow painter.
Speaker 1:One thing you just touched on was people's reaction when they see the finished portrait that you've painted. That must be a pretty cool time to embrace that moment.
Speaker 2:It's pretty nerve-wracking when you're the painter. Really yeah because you never know how they're going to react. You know when you invite the people who commission me down to check it out before I finish off and varnish it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:You know, just to make sure they're happy with everything.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I want them to go away feeling really happy, so that you know they'll tell other people too.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, but it's obviously got to have an impact on that person being painted like in some capacity, whether it's like just complete exhilaration or just astonished that you know it actually looks like them or has so much depth.
Speaker 2:Well, the nice thing is that painting on linen, you know, like those portraits from Caravaggio, and that they're hundreds of years old, if you paint on good linen those images and good paint, those images are going to last for hundreds of years old. Yeah, if you paint on good linen those images and good paint, those images are going to last for hundreds of years. So you know that image of that person is going to go down the line of generations and you know of family.
Speaker 2:Which is kind of nice. Yeah, better than a photo, I think.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah. Well, that's the depth part of it, isn't it? There's a character and a depth for what I can see with what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, hey, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me Really appreciate your time so interesting and, as I said, people can check out your website, vicki V-I-C-K-I sullivancom for heaps more details and the portrait instructional video. Hey, we'll catch up soon anyway. Yeah, but thanks again.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Jase. That's really nice to chat with you.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2:Good on you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, vicki, we'll speak soon.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Thank you, pleasure. Good on you. Thanks, vick. We'll speak soon. Yep, thank you. Bye, thanks. Anyone who would like to commission vicky. Details are on her website, vicky sullivan v-i-c-k-i sullivancom, and all links to vicky sullivan, including her portrait. Instructional video can be found. You can find more details of this episode in the show notes. Be sure to check this out, as there is plenty of information to follow. You can follow vicky on instagram at vicky sullivan artwork. That's v-i-c-k-i sullivan artwork. You can follow and support this show as well through the show notes. The champion within is at the underscore. Champion within on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned and I'll be with you again soon.
