“We spend our lives trying to anchor our transience in some illusion of permanence and stability. We lay plans, we make vows, we backbone the flow of uncertainty with habits and routines that lull us with the comforting dream of predictability and control, only to find ourselves again and again bent at the knees with surrender to forces and events vastly larger than us. In those moments, kneeling in a pool of the unknown, the heart breaks open and allows life — life itself, not the simulacrum of life that comes from control — to rush in.” —Maria Popova

In March, I found myself moving from Brooklyn, NY to Los Angeles, CA, unexpectedly and suddenly, for what I called my ‘LA experiment’ — but it was really much heavier than that. I arrived as the atmosphere was wrapping up an unprecedented wet winter in California, and I was just as damp from a personal deluge. Uprooted and wilted, my heart was stirred to life by color.

The sun came out. Wildflowers were cascading down the canyon hillsides. I walked around collecting colors from Seussian red bottlebrush trees and violet Jacarandas and blue Plumbago plants, simply in awe of the magenta explosions of bougainvillea and electric yellow mustard flowers — everywhere. This spring in LA was abundant and intoxicating and unruly. Alongside the joy of seeing so much color, I was overcome by a sense of possibility.

Here was Nature’s exuberance, its fertility, its resilience. And with it, I saw my own. Somehow, with a heart full of sorrow, my spirit found effervescent gestures on canvas — there is a vibrancy and boldness to the work that I could not have anticipated (coming to form as a personal, parallel ‘superbloom’ I like to think). These paintings take cues from California’s efflorescence, but the compositions reflect something more: an atmospheric and energetic quest to find beauty in broken stories. In the words of the poet, Mark Nepo, “Expression is sunlight that emanates from within. It causes the soul to blossom in time.” We are solar beings after all. There is always growth waiting in moist, dark earth. It will break through.

These works are oriented around the ephemeral, evoking the lush trembling of wild beauty and reminding us that our lives are just as silky and fleeting as the flowers. We are, in the end, a measure of the color that lingers in a mind, the love we leave behind.

Thank you, Los Angeles.

Please inquire for catalog of work: studio@alainasullivan.com




Superbloom, I
2023
Acrylic on linen  
18 x 24 in




Superbloom, II
2023
Acrylic on linen  
18 x 24 in




Superbloom, III
2023
Acrylic on linen  
18 x 24 in




Superbloom, IV
2023
Acrylic on linen  
18 x 24 in




Superbloom, V
2023
Acrylic on linen  
24 x 30 in




Superbloom, VI
2023
Acrylic on linen  
24 x 30 in







Details
Each painting in this collection is original to the artist and is finished with a custom, natural maple frame.

For more information about these works, or to inquire about the availability of a piece, please email studio@alainasullivan.com.

‘Superbloom’ was produced and photographed by Alaina in Los Angeles, CA in 2023. A special thank you to Kim Schoen for letting me use her studio to make this work.