Tête à tête avec Françoise Sullivan

Françoise Sullivan and I have been in conversation for many years. Since we first met in 1988, I must have asked her thousands of questions, and her answers have enriched our relationship year after year. For this umpteenth tête-à-tête, it seemed imperative to focus on the strong connection that exists for her between painting and life. I didn’t meet her at the studio—precisely so as to keep the material, chromatic, and sensuous aspects of painting, the “faktura,” at a distance—but in her home, in order to evoke the vital dimension of painting in her daily surroundings and in what vibrates at the core of her life. Françoise’s most significant tête-à-tête in art is with painting. Let us see.

Louise Déry: Françoise, do you remember how you first came into contact with painting?