Jordan Sullivan
At the Corner of Heartbreak & Avalanche

September 19 to October 25, 2020

Ampersand is pleased to present At the Corner of Heartbreak & Avalanche, an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Jordan Sullivan. His work presents a psychological no man’s land—a place for the displaced. It’s a stage for a disoriented cast of misfits, expatriates, mercenaries, refugees, boxers, alcoholics, drifters, artists and strippers. Each of these characters, real and imagined, seem to be surviving, as if in limbo, within indeterminate and abstracted territories.

In most of Sullivan’s paintings his subjects are surrounded by a constellation of images, colors and textures. Floating roses, burning houses, half-smoked cigarettes, beer bottles, birds, bicycles, sleeping suns, wide-eyed moons, handless clocks, balloons, rain clouds and fragments of text are drifting in spaces both murky and vibrant. Each character and component within these pictures seem to exist as leftovers in a hypnotic world, no longer nameable.

Sullivan’s work is an intentional blend of 19th and 20th Century North and South American folk art traditions. His focus is primarily on found materials—old wood, aged book covers and roughly cut canvas, tarp and drop cloths. His practice relies heavily on salvaging and saving. Surfaces are scavenged from trash cans, found on street corners or in abandoned buildings. These materials, rendered useless by some, are given a second chance in his work.

Raw, immediate, charged with an expressive and urgent quality, Sullivan’s art depicts a grim world that is broken but salvageable. His characters, whether lost in grief, lost in alcohol, alone in a new country or at a crossroads, become testaments to a kind of resilience that has always marked our shared humanity.

Jordan Sullivan was born in Houston, Texas and raised in rural Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. He has worked as a dishwasher, a housekeeper, a janitor, on construction crews and as a graphic designer—jobs he admits mostly being bad at and often being fired from. Recent years have found him in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, where he now lives and works. His new collection of poetry, poems for the morning after, was published by Dead End Books in early 2020.

The Writer (Portrait of
Donald Goines, 1936-1974), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
42 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches
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Michelene at Her Grandmother’s Funeral
(Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago), 2020
Acrylic on canvas and found wood frame
11 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches

The Waiting Room, 2020
Acrylic on wood
20 x 20 inches
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Dead Painter, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
44 1/2 x 36 inches

Installation View

Strange Time, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches

It's Snowing in LA, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
9 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches

Bird Man on Los Angeles Street, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
9 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches

Hollywood Wild Card, 2020 Acrylic on book cover
9 1/4 x 5 7/8 inches

Saint Francis on Ecstasy, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
32 x 33 1/2 inches
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Drinker 1, 2020
Acrylic and clay
9 x 4 x 4 inches

Drinker 2, 2020
Acrylic and clay
6 1/2 x 4 x 4 inches

Drinker 3, 2020
Acrylic and clay
9 1/2 x 4 x 4 inches

Bloodline, 2020
Acrylic on Canvas
14 x 11 inches

Cowboy, 2020
Acrylic on Canvas
22 x 28 inches
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Raymond Yellow Foot, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 1/8 x 9 1/8 inches

Cooleys Lounge, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches

Sun Poisoning, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches

Sonny's Blues, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
43 1/2 x 31 inches

Drinker 4, 2020
Acrylic and clay
8 1/2 x 3 x 3 inches

Drinker 5, 2020
Acrylic and clay
8 x 3 x 2 1/2 inches

Drinker 6, 2020
Acrylic and clay
8 x 2 /12 x 3 inches

Installation View

When Time was Two Boys Playing Football
on a Beach (Castara, Tobago), 2020
Acrylic on canvas with wooden frame
11 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches

Night on The Nickel (Skid Row, California), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
31 x 37 inches
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Refugee (The Venezuelan Alone in Trinidad), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
49 1/2 x 37 inches
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Drinker 7, 2020
Acrylic and clay
10 x 4 1/2 x 4 inches

Drinker 8, 2020
Acrylic and clay
11 x 5 x 4 inches

Drinker 9, 2020
Acrylic and clay
10 x 3 /12 x 3 inches

Daydreaming at Night (Lily Dancing at The Paradise), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
37 1/4 x 29 3/4 inches
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Mixing Drinks at the Panama Hotel, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
32 x 35 inches
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A Morning After When the Birds
Are Singing Off Key, 2020
Acrylic on wood
14 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches

Installation View

Mens Room (Smoking and Drinking in the Basement of Kellys Bar), 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches

Parachuting Through
Unborn Stars, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
9 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches

3rd Street and Nowhere, 2020 Acrylic on book cover
8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches

Columbus Day
Downtown LA, 2020
Acrylic on book cover
10 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches

The Expatriate & The Mercenary
(The Future Is in the Past), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
41 1/2 x 31 inches
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Drinker 10, 2020
Acrylic and clay
8 1/2 x 3 /12 x 3 1/2 inches

Drinker 11, 2020
Acrylic and clay
7 x 4 x 3 1/2 inches

Drinker 12, 2020
Acrylic and clay
7 x 4 /12 x 4 inches

Living Alone, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
36 1/4 x 32 inches
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A Father Showing His Son the Ocean
for the First Time (Trinidad & Tobago), 2020
Acrylic on canvas with wooden frame
16 1/2 x 12 3/4 inches

Roads of a Drifter, 2020
Acrylic on wood
12 x 7 3/4 inches

Installation View