Paul Sullivan

The Four Square Laundry series, Sullivan’s long running exploration of the IRA’s 2nd October 1972 ambush of a British undercover Laundry operation, is presented here as an update on the project ahead of a film reconstruction of the event. The drawing sequences were developed after new information on the incident came into the public realm. Through the use of doubling every drawing with slight variations – each one referencing either a Republican or a British version of events – the Four Square Laundry series mirror the immediate and long-term points of counter-claim evident from oppositional factions in any war situation, thus making the notion of what is truth and what is lie almost subservient to what needs to operate as myth within the cultural and media contexts of the given situation.

The new video installation made during the Art Arcadia residency reveals the actual (or one of the actual), Four Square Dry Cleaners’ vans that were used by the British Army’s covert Mobile Reaction Force (MRF).

Paul Sullivan is an architect and is the founder and director of Static Gallery, Liverpool (www.statictrading.com).
Static is concerned with the processes of creative production, exchange and trade and the structures that support these processes within the local and global economy. Static are often commissioned to undertake art, architecture, academic and critical writing projects whilst at the same time being the commissioning agents, producers and curators for small to large scale art, architecture, publication, symposium and music events.

This project is part of Art Arcadia’s exchange programme with The Liverpool Irish Festival.