When Richard Sullivan was named Kentucky Derby Festival poster artist, he fulfilled another goal that he’d set for himself as an artist: following in the steps of famed Kentucky artists like Janean Barnhart.
Sullivan returned to Louisville in 2016, after a career in baseball with the Atlanta Braves. Since moving back home and beginning his professional art career, his work has been acquired by museums and companies across the country. Sullivan’s work can be found at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Yogi Berra Museum and shown at The Louisville Slugger Museum and Kentucky Derby Museum alike. His work decorates walls and baseball parks as well.
But this is only one side of Richard Sullivan. It’s the side that’s been written about, shared with the world, and the side that most people think of when they hear that Sullivan is creating a new work.
“I think I've created this image of what I want people to see me as,” said Sullivan. “Whenever I was getting done with baseball and, and starting to create art, it wasn't about creativity or imagination. It was like, this is what I think people will like. And that’s because I think, for me… growing up, I always had a lot of positive feedback. I was so afraid. It was almost like my sense of self was attached to being somebody else, or being what people thought I was. Does that make sense?”
Yes, it does.
In case it isn’t clear, there is another Richard Sullivan.
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When I met Richard Sullivan, I remember it being at a friend’s birthday party, a brief introduction on a makeshift dance floor, and I didn’t see him again until we were both made Hadley Creatives, a fellowship for mid-career artists, in 2018.
His introduction as a Hadley was much like the one that his artist bio shares but the Richard Sullivan I came to know is a person of great depth and tenderness that renders him so much more than the sum of his “public” parts.
So when Sullivan (have to keep decorum since this is written in a professional capacity) was named the Kentucky Derby Poster artist for 2024’s Derby season, I knew that I wanted to write about him in a way that felt more authentic to the artist I knew.
Yes, his Pegasus for the Kentucky Derby stands out from some of his usual work because the creature is fantastical but it still is another piece of “that” Richard Sullivan.
Who then, is the real person?
Well, baseball and all that we know about him as an artist is very much part of who he is. His career as a baseball player was central to his personality for years before he played in the professional capacity. It was a place that kept him safe.
“I think growing up, like I was telling you, I don't have memories in my childhood. My parents got divorced, and I woke up and I was in this whirlwind and baseball was my savior. I felt like myself. It was something I was good at. So I attached to that. But everywhere else, and I was always in art class and whenever I would pick up a pencil, I would draw, but I didn't express myself.”
That expression is something that Sullivan is actively seeking in his life as an artist but perhaps more, as a human being searching for his most authentic self.
“I think the work I'm doing now, outside of my commercial work, is going back to my inner child and being like ‘It's safe to play. It's safe to create.’ I think that's scary because I've never done that before. I don't know what's gonna come out. I think the scariest part is like ‘What if somebody doesn't like this?’”
In Sullivan’s studio space, his work and play are separate. Where he creates for business feels very much like a savvy creative — a Hadley Creative who listened during class. There is a space for discussing his work, planning with clients and answering his business emails and there is workspace for painting. It is bright and organized.
His play space is more spare. The lighting isn’t as even and like the part of Richard that is still wild and walking on new legs, it’s less polished and tamed.
“It's really scary to be, to be myself,” Sullivan said. “I think all my commercial work and all this stuff I've done has always been the Richard that I thought people wanted to see — the Richard that was this person, but that's not really who I am deep down… I think it's taken 37 years to be ‘The Richard that has attached to all these different things, is it really the authentic Richard?’ And I'm just in the beginning stages of figuring that out.”
As we talk, he shows me some photos of him as a child — the child that he has no memory of. The face of a blonde child stares back from the images, lost somewhere behind dark eyes. His twin brother beside him, seemingly unaware of the disconnect young Sullivan is experiencing.
We detour into what it means to discover one’s self and to care for that young self that’s been hurt. It’s a human story that, if we are lucky, we’re able to tune in and heal from.
For Sullivan, like so many others, the COVID-19 pandemic gave him a pause he needed.
“I feel so much more safe with myself. I'm not seeking anything anymore,” he said.
I was doing so many destructive things. Getting into relationships. I shouldn't be getting in — all those things you just do because you think, ‘Oh I have to feel safe.’”
When Sullivan is in his ‘play’ space, he paints from the photographs he’s shared and from things he does remember or sense about his childhood. Sometimes they are free and dark but some are just the face of his young self, looking back at him, begging for understanding.
“I've devoted like an hour a day to purely just whatever happens. The last three weeks I haven't done it because I've had a busy work schedule. The goal is to see what's next in my journey. And also feeling connected to a community and connected to other artists that are doing the same work.
“I think Louisville is such an amazing space to be a creative person. I bought this house building in Portland and could never have done it in any other city. I've been able to be a full-time artist for almost 10 years now.”
Richard Sullivan is blooming. He’s made a creative life for himself in Louisville, staying connected to his past solace — sports, but he’s reaching for something deeper and manifesting who he wants to become. In many ways the name of his former pro sports team is emblematic of the person he’s becoming. Brave.
