Holcomb-Jimson Farm Painting

Fine Art Painter Kelly Sullivan is an award-winning artist and founder of FingerSmears™, her signature method of collaborative art. Born and raised in Clinton Township, New Jersey, Sullivan knew she would be an artist when she was five years old, the year her grandmother surrounded her with paint and repeated simple but encouraging words: “Don’t be shy with the paint,” a refrain that stuck. Largely self-taught, Sullivan sold her first artworks (pencil and pastel drawings) in the mid 1980’s. Her interest turned toward musical portraiture and led her to paint many of her icons, including Bruce Springsteen, John Lee Hooker, BB King, and many more. Her musical works graced the walls of BB Kings Blues Club in New York for years, and showed in the Ambassador Gallery in Soho along side works by Jerry Garcia, Tico Torres, and Ronnie Wood. Sullivan produced her first multi-artist “Montage” show, (featuring 5 diverse artists) at The Old Mill Inn in Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey. The 1993 “Montage” exhibition was featured on the front page of Herald Extra and called “the most innovative show the Jersey shore has seen in some time” by the local News 12. The first “Montage” planted the seed for a trailblazing list of shows, exhibitions and festivals. In between shows and events, Sullivan traveled to Southeast Asia and Europe painting her “faces of the Earth” series. US Servas, an organization that promotes world peace through direct cultural exchange, sponsored her travels on Europe. Her travels were depicted in her traditional works and added to the multicultural flavor of her Montage shows. Her last Montage show was hands-on and featured 15 working studios under one roof. This is where Kelly developed her first FingerSmears™; large-scale commemorative paintings created by using dabs of paint and signatures from hundreds of people on one canvas. She has continued to create these collaborative works for over 20 years. In 2005, Kelly Sullivan put down her acrylic paint and picked up the classical medium of oil paint and she fell in love. A lifetime painter of people, Kelly has recently turned to the freedom of landscapes. They come to life in her delicately rendered canvases depicting the Idaho mountains, New Jersey farms, or softly muted beaches of Haiti. In 2012, Kelly accepted a residency invitation from the elite Bitter End Yacht Club where she created a private collection for the Hokin family.