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Indepth Arts News:
"Sean Scully: Paintings, Pastels, Watercolors and Photographs"
2001-03-17 until 2001-06-04
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
Dusseldorf, ,
DE Germany
Working in his studios in Barcelona, London and New York, Irish-born Sean Scully has in recent years created an œuvre which, thanks not least to its enormous consistency, occupies an important position in the development of contemporary painting.
During the last decade the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen purchased two large-format paintings of Scully's Durango (1990) and Wall of Light Light (1999) which are now among the central pieces of a comprehensive exhibition of the works of Sean Scully produced between the years of 1990 and 2000. The exhibition shows not only his paintings, pastels and watercolours but also his photographs, which he did not begin to exhibit until 1997.
Since the late sixties, horizontal and vertical stripes have been the sole formal motif of Sean Scully's painting. Scully groups these broad stripes in alternating arrangements, creating monumental yet subtle structures. The central theme of Scully's art is the way the stripes are painted: he applies one thick layer of colour after another, their sum total being an irritating mass of colour tones. This painterly process is one which the viewer can readily reconstruct, especially along the edges of the stripes where the contrasting colours meet. ...the edges between things are full of the history of the way the paintings make. The neutrality of the stripe, which in the real world is visible in countless constellations, makes him, says Scully, particularly receptive to interpretations. Thus many of his large-format paintings, often constructed from several parts, awaken associations with landscapes, façades, buildings and ornaments. The overwhelming impression which his paintings make on the viewer, however, comes both from the uniqueness of their colour effect and from the light which seems to glow beneath the surface.
IMAGE:
Sean Scully,
Pink Bar, 1998
Oil on Linen, 121.9x109.2 cm
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