Blain|Southern Gallery is presenting Sean Scully’s first exhibition with the gallery, named 'Uninsideout'. Featuring large-scale, multi-panel paintings, as well as works on
paper, sculpture and a group of his celebrated Landline paintings, the
exhibition will offer an overview of the artist’s multi-faceted oeuvre.
Rhythm
has always been of central importance to Scully, and much of the work in
Uninsideout has a palpable musical structure. Rhythm emerges from both his sources
of inspiration, such as music and poetry, but also in his process, visible in
the fluid handling of his medium and his own powerful movement as he paints.
The geometric structure that characterises his work creates a background
rhythm, opening up space for improvisation and new pictorial ideas.
Deploying
subtly differentiated hues and tones, he creates harmony, and sometimes
discord, between the sections of a painting. Scully grew up in his
grandmother’s house in London surrounded by poetry and music, not least the
homesick songs of the matriarchs and Irish workers who lodged there. He went on
to play in a band and also ran a blues club. He witnessed the explosion of rock
‘n’ roll and was fascinated by its immediacy and ability to transcend divisions
of language, race, class and politics. This led to his interest in developing
an artistic language that was abstract and minimal, yet profoundly human,
feeding his belief in a rhythmical structure that binds the world,
unconsciously, together.
Scully’s Landlines developed from his interest in the
meeting points of land, sea and air, the unpredictable rhythm of the ocean and
the ever-changing horizon. As this restless artist continues to leap geographic
borders and more than ever push against his own boundaries, perhaps his
personality is most readily apparent in these works, looking back at us from
deep within the swirling currents of these elemental paintings. And yet the
concept of music persists: ‘One stripe’, observes the artist, ‘is a note, many
are a chord, all are played by hand.’
Since 2016, Scully has taken to painting
on both aluminium and copper. Responding to paint in different ways, each
support creates a rhythm and tempo of its own. This choice of polished surface
also connects with the artist’s interest in how his art can absorb and reflect
meaning from and to the viewer. He states: ‘I want my paintings to be obvious,
so that when you see them you feel that I have painted something you were
thinking yourself, as if I have stolen the thought from you. This is what I
mean by empathy’.
Sean Scully’s extraordinary achievement will be recognised in
2018 by no less than 10 solo exhibitions at museums and institutions around the
world, including Sean Scully: Landline, a major exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum,
Washington D.C. from 13 September. His exhibition at Blain|Southern falls
amongst a series of institutional shows across the UK, including his
largest-ever presentation of sculptures at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from 29
September.
About the
artist
Born in Dublin in 1945, Sean Scully grew up in London and settled in
America in the mid-1970s. One of the most admired abstract painters working
today, his work draws on the traditions of European painting, invigorated with
the distinct character of American abstraction. In a career spanning six
decades – and counting – Scully has risen to international prominence, with
work held in major public collections worldwide.
Scully’s varied practice
encompasses printmaking, sculpture, watercolours and pastels, but he is best
known for rich, monumental abstract paintings in which stripes or blocks of
layered colour are a prevailing motif. Recent solo exhibitions include: Sean
Scully: 1970, Laing Art Gallery and Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, UK (2018) and
The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK (2018); Facing East, State Russian Museum
– Marble Palace, St. Petersburg, RU (2018); Vita Duplex, Staatliche Kunsthalle
Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, DE (2018); Landlines and other recent work, De Pont
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, NL (2018).
Forthcoming exhibitions
include: Sean Scully: Inside Outside, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK
(September 2018 – January 2019) and Sean Scully: Landline, Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, US (September 2018 – February 2019).
About
Blain|Southern Gallery
Blain|Southern is a contemporary art gallery based in London and
Berlin. The gallery represents an expanding roster of international artists and
is the exclusive representative of the estates of Lynn Chadwick and Avigdor
Arikha. Recent exhibitions include Moshekwa Langa, Edward Kienholz, Frank
Thiel, Liliane Tomasko, Wim Wenders and Marius Bercea.
Blain|Southern: 4 Hanover
Square London W1S 1BP
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday: 10am - 6pm Saturday: 10am - 5pm
Tel: +44(0)
20 7493 4492
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