ARTIST BIO

Esme Sullivan is a realism portrait painter and photographer based in England. Working in a highly developed artistic style, combining oil painting, fine drawing, photography and photoshop. Esme’s oil paintings are influenced by fashion photography and appear glossy in texture and highly detailed as though they could be a billboard advertisement.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Inspired and influenced by Surrealist photography and feminist painting, my work evokes feelings of glamour, distortion, and sensuality with a surreal edge. From a young age, I have had a keen interest in fashion photography. This glossy, highly edited style of photography has had a great influence on my work, from the style of my shoots to the texture of my paint. I admire the clean, flawless textures and slick appearance of this genre of images.

My artistic process emulates my photography, shooting and the editing process replace the action of sketching as preparation for my paintings. Throughout my practice I have focused on the idea of texture. I use a glossy paint medium and precise strokes to give my paintings a smooth, glossy appearance with a high fashion feel.

Currently my practice has materialised as a manipulation of an idealised image of a beautiful woman. My work aims to challenge the idea of the viewing of women and the commodification of their sexualised media image. Inspired by iconic image of female celebrities and artist Cindy Sherman, my work is an exploration of the portrayal of women in the media, through deconstruction and reconstruction of an archetypal celebrity image. By recreating famed/aesthetic images of female actresses, models, and public figures, I hope to create a discourse on how these celebrities are represented. Thematically my work explores representations of identity and femininity with a focus on creating a series of believable characters, of idealised, media curated, modern women.

Hampshire / United Kingdom