Sean Scully

Wall of Light Cubed

Cheim and Read

New York,  547 West 25th Street

Known for his distinguished use of color and form in his paintings, Sean Scully defies the limits of abstraction at extents that his surfaces—often times composed of various panels—gain sculptural elements. Thick layers of paint in geometric forms unite with different colors in various mathematical patterns that seem equally strategic and haphazard. As their uneven edges blend into their neighboring colors, rectangles or cubes overall compose an absorbing aesthetic. 

Sean Scully, Blue Note,  2016 Oil and acrylic spray on aluminum Courtesy the artist and Cheim and Read

In his current Cheim & Read exhibition Wall of Light Cubed, the Turner Prize nominee artist introduces a series of mammoth scale sculptures that are in a similar vein with his painting practice. The Dublin-born artist’s signature colors such as dark red, earthy yellow, and off blue stack dominate the exhibition that finds a balance between his three dimensional works and large scale paintings. In Colored Stacked Frames, a 10 by 8 feet sculpture composed of six layers of stainless steel panels, each layer appears in a different color ranging from black at the bottom to red on top. 

Sean Scully, Wall of Light Cubed at Cheim Read Courtesy the artist and Cheim and Read

“I went to see a therapist for a while and, in the end, he told me to go away. He said: ‘Although there’s a lot wrong with you, you like yourself the way you are. And he was right. I’ve made 1,400 paintings by hand. You’d have to be a madman to do that. But it’s what I want to do. I want to live to 95 – to be there for my son – and I hope I’m still staggering out of the chair to paint. I’m not one of these people who is privileged with doubt. I look at my paintings sometimes and I think they’re fucking wonderful. I love them,” said the New York-based artist to Mark Lawson in a 2015 The Guardian interview about the meditative impact of painting on him. 

The exhibition runs through May 20th