Sean Scully is an Irish-born printmaker and painter working in the United States known for his abstract designs. Scully’s paintings are characterised by their multiple painted panels that join to other panels and walls, and their bold blocks of colour. He studied art at the Central School of Art and Croydon College of Art and received his BA from Newcastle University in 1972. He explored working with oil on canvas, creating textured surfaces by applying layers of thick paint. After abandoning his original practise with the masking tape used in hard-edge painting, he continued to develop his signature stripe motif for many years.
Sean Scully extended this practise to render compositions that mirrored that of a chequerboard. These technical works portray a complex structure of lines and shapes. Although abstract, these shapes reflect a sense of time and place. The changes in his native country has shaped the development of his own work. Scully reflects that his chequered compositions seek to mirror the ways in which Ireland has changed societally. He has received critical acclaim, twice-nominated for the Turner Prize for best British-born visual artist under the age of 50. His work has been exhibited across the globe, in galleries such as the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Reina Sofia National Museum in Madrid.
