Opening on Saturday, February 23 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut and remaining on view through May 19, 2019, “Sean Scully: Landline” exhibition marks the first chance for audiences to experience the full range of Scully’s latest evolution, and includes two dozen works never before seen by the public.
This exhibition traces the series’ expression through a variety of media, with nearly 50 oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, photographs and two layered aluminum Stack sculptures. In addition, Irish-born, American artist Sean Scully’s acclaimed “Landline” series of abstract paintings was a major highlight of the 56th Venice Biennale and the United States is the premiere of these works, which represent a dramatic and seminal shift in the work of today’s most important abstract artist.
Known for combining the geometry of European concrete art with the ethereality of American abstraction, Scully’s thick, gestural brushstrokes over grids of stripes and squares evoke the energy and beauty of the natural world.
Scully’s “Landline” works are largely inspired by his years in Ireland, particularly his time looking out to the sea. In these moments, he saw the layers of the world pressed into the space in front of him, forming the stacks that would come to characterize this series.
The expressive and unconstrained bands of color reach beyond abstraction and into the sublime, where the contours of landscapes unfold to reveal the physical and emotional dimensions of experience, trauma and memory.
For more information, call 860.278.2670 or see: http://thewadsworth.org. Note: This exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.