Mike Sullivan + Great Island Trail
If Arthur Rimbaud is—as was once written—the first poet of a civilization which hasn’t yet appeared, then Mike Sullivan is that society’s first costumier. At age 25, he has an instinct for primeval storytelling. His works are not showy in the way that autumn colors or sweeping waves are not showy. They’re just doing what they do: existing, glamorously.
In a recent pop-up exhibition at Studio Lacombe in Provincetown, Sullivan filled the gallery with rough magic. His wearable sculptures—masks, crowns, headpieces—hung beside animal skulls, feathers, and scavenged marsh weeds. Photos of the artist and his models shone against backdrops of horizon and sea. First intrigued by costume through his theatrical training, Sullivan has another outlet photographing drag and queer nightlife in NYC. In this display, isolating similar subjects in natural elegance, he recasts them as royalty of future kingdoms.
Much of his material biodegrades or implies danger. “It is thrilling to work with [media] with a limited lifespan,” he writes. “Crafting with delicate flowers and sharp mirrors reminds me that we, too, have limited time.” Sullivan’s creations are part floral crowns, part ceremonial masks; ethereal and evolving; Max Ernst meets Machine Dazzle meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sometimes they’re worn while on fire.
Further down the arm of Cape Cod is a hike with a similar sense of nature’s dichotomy, Wellfleet’s Great Island Trail. Park in a sandy lot off Chequessett Neck Road and walk, shoeless and wallet-free along the dunes, through pine woods to the water. Fiddler crabs side-step waving one claw. Green grass marshes roil in the wind. You’ll see hard truths in all this peace: gull wings, broken crustacean legs, and, once, a deer’s bleached rib cage. The water is silver in late light while the wet sand folds into pleats.
Trek the quiet miles back to your car, then trade the dimming bay for the glitz of Ptown’s Friday night art openings. Meet makers like Sullivan. Feel like Rimbaud’s children after the deluge, hair still drying, in a glass house “looking at the marvelous pictures.”
10/3/2019