Introduction

This website presents itself as an opportunity to further my experiences and investigations with architecture and the urban landscape, particularly in the New York City area. Along the way I hope to gain creative insights, communicate with others, and also strengthen the critical thought processes and future projects. The medium supports an ongoing sequence of presentations, covering projects from the past as well as any new inspirations that arise.

Being in and around the sites and activities about the environment is what interests me most. The work in the studio can only do so much to capture all the phenomenons present in the world. For me, figurative work whether it’s through paintings, drawings or photographs can be a highly limited form of representation. Visual images can have a “picture perfect” quality due to the perspective and framing but are only an illusion to the real. Time is made static and sensations are inhibited due to the prioritizing of the visual over other senses. To overcome some of these limitations the pictures I create are purposely imbued with haptic treatments, such as a hand and eye wrestling of material application, as well as distorted use of colors ranging from highly pure/bold tones to broken/muted tones. Oil pastels are my medium of choice to accomplish this and what I use most often.

The other medium which I admittedly undervalued in my past work a great deal is the written word. So much could be said of the qualities of writing and for this website I see my writings as a type of glue that can synthesize all my ideas, impressions, and creations together, while also establishing a dialogue between the site and studio and others.

Origin

For those of you who know me, you might be wondering why I’m using a strange name in place of my real first name. Well first of all, a common first name combined with a relatively common last name means I would be buried in the search engines. It’s nice to realize that by using my middle name in place of my first name I’m now maybe the only Tyska Sullivan in the world. Secondly, I’m somewhat accustomed to acquiring different nicknames at different stages of my life so here’s to another.

Tyska, for those interested in the history of the name, is my middle name, my mothers maiden name, my grandparents surname, and so on. The origin is in Poland and is traced to the city of Lomza and surrounding cities and regions, northeast of the capital Warsaw. Spelled originally as Tyszka, and from what I can gather, this surname is ironically a nickname or short from of the name of Greek origin Timotheos, spelled Tymoteusz in its polish form, anglicized as Timothy and therefore Timmy.