Layers of stripes
For over 50 years, Sean Scully's intriguing oeuvre has been dominated by compositions of stripes in various colors. They run vertically and horizontally and vary in width and length, while the artist also fills his paintings' pictorial surfaces with rectangular color fields. The first step Scully takes is to divide and organize the surface that is to be painted, a precise arrangement of stripes and color fields. Drawing on an almost infinite wealth of composition options, Scully initially subdivides the rectangular form of the pictorial surface into several more minor rectangular elements. In his later works, the division aspect becomes considerably less strict: Instead of using a ruler, he draws the lines by hand. Scully then applies the paint with a broad brush in multiple layers, sometimes overlapping and sometimes impasto. In the present work, Scully uses this layering to create a variety of shades of red: no two shades of red are the same, an effect created by concealed underpainting. We find beneath the visible surface colors hues of blue, gray-green, light yellow, violet, and brown. Narrow stripes of color gleam from the blurred edges and transitions between the individual color fields, making the picture's surface shimmer and vibrate, filling it with life. “There are no simple colors in my work.. there are no whites, no reds. Colors are always subverted by the colors underneath, so when you're looking at something, you are never quite sure what you're looking at” (Sean Scully, quoted from Hossein Amirsadeghi/Maryam Homayoun Eisler (eds.), Sanctuary: Britain's Artists and their Studios, London, 2011, p. 112).

From canvas to aluminum
Sean Scully's artistic approach has remained the same over the years, although his painting is constantly subject to development and change. After initial artistic experiments with 'floating' aluminum panels mounted on the wall at 90° angles in the 1990s, the artist discovered metal, an unconventional contemporary material suitable for his surface paintings, in 2007. In contrast to canvas, the rugged aluminum with a smooth surface finish does not allow the paint to 'breathe'; instead, it rests on the surface and, unlike the case with canvas works, is not absorbed by the substrate. In combination with the soft gloss of the oil paint, the metallic surface lends the work an entirely new aesthetic quality. Depending on the incidence of light, the expressiveness of the respective areas of color and their surface texture changes and, in combination with the warm colors used here, results in a highly sensual opulence.

"Full of emotion"
In the present work, Scully pushed the envelope even further than in works from the 1990s. In this case, the formal framework barely holds the composition together. The black surface provides stability. However, the individual color bands differ in length, the broad brushstroke blurs the edges, and here and there, the artist lets the brush touch the surface 'too early' or 'too late' so that the application of paint contradicts the previously conceived geometric division of the pictorial surface in a very sensual way. Rigor and precision have to make way for gentle transitions, a particularly painterly style, and the energy and emotions Scully sets free when painting. "I am convinced that abstraction is and was there to embody deep emotion," explains the artist (quoted from Kelly Grovier (ed.), Inner, Berlin 2018, p. 104). Inspired by the Abstract Expressionists, including Mark Rothko, Scully discovered his unmistakable visual language, a deeply felt, poetically charged abstraction: "Newman tried to make a space that was spiritually charged, and that is what I try to do in my work too." (S. Scully, quoted from: Florence Ingleby (ed.), Sean Scully. Resistance and Persistence. Selected Writings, London 2006, p. 90)

Ai Weiwei also comments on this sentimental side of Scully's painting: "You could see his expression and passion in every piece, and that is something that has never changed. His works have always been full of emotion, and you can see clearly where intention and form intersect." (Ai Weiwei, quoted from: Kelly Grovier (ed.), Sean Scully. Bricklayer of the Soul, Ostfildern 2015, p. 55). [CH]