Stripes in Layers
Sean Scully's fascinating oeuvre, which covers a period of more than 50 years, is dominated by polychrome compositions of vertical and horizontal stripes of different widths and lengths, as well as rectangular color fields that fill image areas divided into rectangles.
Scully's first work step is the segmentation of the area that is to be painted, a precise arrangement of stripes and color fields. From an almost infinite wealth of compositional possibilities, Scully divides the rectangular shape of the image area into several smaller rectangular elements. In his later works, the structure is much less strict: the lines are not drawn with a ruler but by hand. Using a broad brush, Scully then applies his paint in numerous, overlapping and sometimes impasto layers, a method that led to a variety of red nuances in the work offered here: owing to the covert underpaintings, no two red hues are the same. Blue, grey-green, light yellow, violet and brown are the colors underneath the surface, colors that shimmer through in narrow stripes at the blurred borders and transitions between the individual color fields, making the entire imag area vibrate and full of 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're never quite sure what you're looking at" (Sean Scully quoted in: Hossein Amirsadeghi and Maryam Homayoun Eisler, Eds., Sanctuary: Britain's Artists and their Studios, London, 2011, p. 112).

From Canvas to Aluminum
Sean Scully's concept of art has not changed much over the years, although his painting is subject to constant development. After his first artistic experiments with 'floating' aluminum panels protruding at right angles from the wall in the 1990s, the artist discovered metal as an unusual, contemporary material in 2007 for his surface-based paintings. In contrast to canvas, the harder, smooth aluminum resists the slight 'breathing' of the paint because it lies on the surface and, unlike it is the case with canvas, is not absorbed by the image carrier. In combination with the gentle shine of the oil paint, the metallic surface gains a completely new aesthetic appeal: Depending on the incidence of light, the expressiveness of the respective colored areas and their surface properties change. and, in conjunction with the warm colors used here, create an extremely sensual opulence.

"Full of emotion"
In the work offered here, Scully goes a step further than in previous works from the 1990s. The framework barely holds the composition: the black color surface gives the representation support, but the individual color bars have different lengths, the edges are blurred due to the broad brushstrokes, here and there the artist uses his tools a little 'too early' or a little 'too late', so that the application of paint contradicts the previously conceived geometric division of the image area in a very sensual way. Any severity and rigidity must give way to smooth transitions, a particularly painterly style and the energy and emotions the artist releases while painting. "I am convinced that abstraction exists and always has existed to embody deep emotion", explains the artist (quoted from: Kelly Grovier (ed.), Inner, Berlin 2018, p. 104) Inspired by Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Scully found his own, distinctive visual language, a deeply felt, poetically charged abstraction: "Newman tried to make a space that was spiritually charged, and that is what I tried to do in my work too." (S. Scully, in: Florence Ingleby (ed.), Sean Scully. Resistance and Persistence - Selected Writings, London 2006, p. 90)
Ai Weiwei also mentions this emotional aspect 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, in: Kelly Grovier (ed.), Sean Scully. Bricklayer of the Soul, Ostfildern 2015, p. 55). [CH]