MAURA SULLIVAN: As We Speak

Things We Remember, Maura Sullivan’s first monograph, invites viewers into the mysterious, elegant, and compelling world that the New York City-based photographer creates. By composing and integrating her subjects into atmospheric locations suffused with natural light, Sullivan’s analog black and white photographs seem to recall a lost time, a summoning from the past, a look beyond the surface, a revelation of the inner world. Each of the 70 eloquently sequenced and richly reproduced duotone plates in this volume tells its own story, conjuring deeply embedded memories and lost dreams. Yet as a collection, a larger, almost cinematic or literary narrative unfolds, leaving room for each viewer to reflect upon the work in their own way. In the end, Things We Remember is a captivating testament to Sullivan’s photographic artistry that further reveals itself with each repeated viewing, offering a spellbinding window into her extraordinary and poetic world.

“Maura Sullivan is a sorceress. She casts spells on her subjects (she loves them all), and each one is transformed into an image equally beautiful, melancholic, and utterly out of time. She is a very good (and very romantic) witch.” —Michael Ackerman

“As We Speak is a dark, grainy dreamscape driven by exquisite gestures with shadows lurking at every turn. It is set in the past in an unknown place far away. Like a great Film Noir, it keeps you on the edge of your seat. Long after this haunting journey, one is still possessed by its state of endless longing.” —Amy Arbus

“Welcome to the secret world of Maura Sullivan. As you leaf through the pages of As We Speak, you might be fooled into believing you’re gazing upon faces from your past, houses you’ve heard about, places that are important, but you’re not quite sure why. Sullivan’s darkly majestic photos—grainy black and white, slightly blurred, strangely cropped, unstable, and shadowed—cast a shamanistic spell on you, entrancing you with their silent and timeless moods, drawing you inward toward mysteries that seem somehow familiar but that you can’t solve, which keeps you staring, wondering, searching . . .” —Josh Gosfield

“Maura Sullivan’s enigmatic images seem strangely familiar yet similarly unknowable, much like a splintered dream or echoes from a faded memory.” —Susan Burnstine, Black + White Photography

“Maura Sullivan’s images are rich and timeless, full of poetic depth; a door opening to other worlds. [They are] haunting, lyrical, and beguiling manifestations of a singular and timeless esthetic.” —June Bateman

“Maura Sullivan is a master lenswoman with a vision, a true artist with a brilliant eye on a patient search. Her images emotionally speak to you; connect to you like a dream coming back to you. Her romantic searching and storytelling pierce you in the heart.” —Mark Sink, Curator

“We don’t always have to know what’s going on or what something means. Maura Sullivan keeps that feeling alive and draws us into her photographs one uncertain moment at a time.” —Michael Kirchoff, Analog Forever

MAURA SULLIVAN was born in 1971 in Hartford, Connecticut. She graduated from Syracuse University (B.F.A.) in 1993 and has also attended the International School of Photography. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and has been widely exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Argentina, the Netherlands, Poland, and Turkey. She received the Julia Margaret Cameron Award in 2011. Galleries representing Sullivan’s work include PG Art Gallery (Istanbul), Kahmann Gallery (Amsterdam), and June Bateman Fine Arts (NYC). Her photographs have been published in Art Forum, Black+White Photography, Shots Magazine, Private International Review of Photographs and Text, Fotoritim, New York Magazine, and the book Series of Dreams (SKP, 2018). Her photographs have also appeared in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. As We Speak is Sullivan’s third monograph, following Things We Remember (SKP, 2021) and After Beauty (2021, 1605 Collective). Sullivan lives and works in New York City.

Published by Skeleton Key Press, January 2026
ISBN 978-0-9997553-3-4
17 x 24.5 cm (6.7 x 9.7 in)
Hardcover, 96 pages, 70 duotone plates
Edited by Russell Joslin and Maura Sullivan
Book design by Russell Joslin
Cover design by Sheila Sullivan
Foreword by May Kuckro
Text in English