Françoise Sullivan
Rouge-terre

2004

Rouge-terre is one of a number of works since Éclats de rouge (1997) in which Françoise Sullivan explored monochromatic colour treatment. Applying layer upon layer of red paint shot with green accents, the artist has endeavoured to merge the image and the field of colour into a formless whole. Using the canvas as pictorial body, Sullivan eschews the trope of it being a window onto the world in favour of creating a scene where the application of paint emerges in time. In so doing, the organizational schema of the canvas defines a space where the visible aspects of painterly time become an occurrence of their own.