Sean Scully Irish-American, 1945
Landline Blue Gray Red, 2023
Oil on aluminium
152.4 x 134.6 cm. (60 x 53 in.)
Copyright The Artist
Further images
Landline Blue Gray Red (2023) stands as a luminous testament to Sean Scully's ability to transcend the confines of abstraction, forging a dialogue between the geometric precision of modernism and...
Landline Blue Gray Red (2023) stands as a luminous testament to Sean Scully's ability to transcend the confines of abstraction, forging a dialogue between the geometric precision of modernism and the organic vastness of the natural world. Executed on aluminium panel, the painting’s surface radiates with vitality. Scully’s trademark horizontal bands shimmer and ripple, rendered in an intensely tactile application of pigment. Shades of dark blue, punctuated by contrasting hues of red and shimmering gray, create a dynamic yet contemplative chemistry, evoking the ebb and flow of the natural elements. The metallic sheen of the aluminium enhances this oscillation, imbuing the work with a sense of depth and luminescence.
This work is part of the artist’s Landline series, which he initiated in 2013. Widely regarded as a pivotal evolution in Scully’s oeuvre, the Landline series represents a profound departure from the vertical and grid-based structures of his earlier works. By introducing horizontal, gestural bands, Scully dissolved rigid geometric boundaries, enabling his paintings to echo the ever-shifting interactions of land, sea, and sky. As the artist himself elucidated, “I try to paint [this] sense of the elemental coming together... the way the blocks of the world hug each other and brush up against each other, their weight, their air, their colour, and the soft uncertain space between them.”
In Landline Blue Gray Red, this fusion of the elemental finds heightened expression through Scully’s choice of medium and palette. The aluminium ground not only lends the work a radiant quality but also underscores its physicality, as the bands of colour seem to hover between materiality and immateriality. The trembling juxtaposition of hues suggests horizons in flux – perhaps a dawn or dusk over the artist’s beloved Galway Bay or the North Sea cliffs that inspired the Landline series.
Scully traces the origins of the Landline series to a photograph he took in 1999 on a Norfolk cliff, where the layers of earth, sea, and sky merged in sublime harmony. The memory of such landscapes – particularly those of his native Ireland – serves as a wellspring for his practice. The Aran Islands, silhouetted against the vast expanse of Galway Bay, remain an enduring influence. In works such as Landline Blue Gray Red, Scully captures not just the appearance of these environments but their elemental essence – the feeling of immensity and the ceaseless interplay of forces.
With its bold chromatic contrasts, sensuous textures, and emotional resonance, Landline Blue Gray Red demonstrates Scully’s mastery of distilling landscape into abstraction. It embodies a deeply humanistic vision, connecting viewers to the primal forces that shape the world.
This work is part of the artist’s Landline series, which he initiated in 2013. Widely regarded as a pivotal evolution in Scully’s oeuvre, the Landline series represents a profound departure from the vertical and grid-based structures of his earlier works. By introducing horizontal, gestural bands, Scully dissolved rigid geometric boundaries, enabling his paintings to echo the ever-shifting interactions of land, sea, and sky. As the artist himself elucidated, “I try to paint [this] sense of the elemental coming together... the way the blocks of the world hug each other and brush up against each other, their weight, their air, their colour, and the soft uncertain space between them.”
In Landline Blue Gray Red, this fusion of the elemental finds heightened expression through Scully’s choice of medium and palette. The aluminium ground not only lends the work a radiant quality but also underscores its physicality, as the bands of colour seem to hover between materiality and immateriality. The trembling juxtaposition of hues suggests horizons in flux – perhaps a dawn or dusk over the artist’s beloved Galway Bay or the North Sea cliffs that inspired the Landline series.
Scully traces the origins of the Landline series to a photograph he took in 1999 on a Norfolk cliff, where the layers of earth, sea, and sky merged in sublime harmony. The memory of such landscapes – particularly those of his native Ireland – serves as a wellspring for his practice. The Aran Islands, silhouetted against the vast expanse of Galway Bay, remain an enduring influence. In works such as Landline Blue Gray Red, Scully captures not just the appearance of these environments but their elemental essence – the feeling of immensity and the ceaseless interplay of forces.
With its bold chromatic contrasts, sensuous textures, and emotional resonance, Landline Blue Gray Red demonstrates Scully’s mastery of distilling landscape into abstraction. It embodies a deeply humanistic vision, connecting viewers to the primal forces that shape the world.