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Lot Essay
A lyrical exploration of light, color and form, the present work is a refined example of Sean Scully’s career-defining Wall of Light paintings. Quivering cells of white, yellow and lilac punctuate a lattice of grey, black and ochre bricks, rendered with loose, fluid brushstrokes. Warm tones of orange and red seep through the crevices, as if backlit by an ancient light source. Inspired by a trip to Mexico in 1983, where Scully was entranced by the sun-scorched Yucatan ruins, the Wall of Light paintings stand as a centerpiece of his oeuvre, bringing his fascination with tonal and formal relationships to a poetic crescendo. “My paintings talk of relationships, how bodies come together,” he explains. “How they touch. How they separate. How they live together, in harmony and disharmony” (S. Scully, quoted in The Imagery of Sean Scully, exh. cat., Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, 2009, p. 8). The present work featured in a major touring exhibition dedicated to the series at the Phillips Collection, Washington D. C., in 2005. Other examples from the cycle are held in institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Begun in 1998, the Wall of Light paintings grew out of a series of watercolors that Scully had made whilst in Mexico. Looking back on the trip after fifteen years, his large-scale canvases sought to conjure the memory of his emotive response to the ruins, whose walls seemed to contain the light of the past within them. “Seeing the Mexican ruins, the stacking of the stones, and the way the light hit those façades, had something to do with it, maybe everything to do with it,” he explained (S. Scully, quoted in Sean Scully: Wall of Light, exh. cat., Phillips Collection, Washington D. C., 2005, p. 24). In his bid to recapture the experience, Scully’s practice underwent a fundamental shift. Moving away from the long stripes that had previously characterized his oeuvre, he surrendered to loose blocks of color that interlocked in arbitrary patterns. As Danilo Eccher notes, “The result was a geometry that was less precise, less self-confident, less presumptuous, becoming instead more poetic, more mysterious, more intimate and more truthful” (D. Eccher, “Sean Scully” in Sean Scully: A Retrospective, London, 2007, p. 13).
Though Scully’s trip to Mexico marked a turning point in his career, the roots of his practice may ultimately be traced to an earlier encounter. In the 1960s, the artist had visited Morocco, where he was struck by the brightly-colored striped textiles that adorned local neighborhoods. At the time, Minimalism was in its heyday, with American artists such as Donald Judd exploring the interaction between color and form in their purest states. Though Scully initially found much in common with this outlook, he ultimately came to identify more closely with the concerns of artists such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, who espoused a more poetic, philosophical approach to abstraction. “Newman tried to make a space that was spiritually charged, and that is what I try to do in my work too,” he explained. “I basically believe the world is filled with spiritual energy and am very involved with things that attract it” (S. Scully, “On Mythology, Abstraction and Mystery” in F. Ingleby (ed.), Sean Scully: Resistance and Persistence: Selected Writings, London, 2006, p. 90). With their mythic, transcendental properties, Scully’s Wall of Light paintings stand among the most important testaments to this conviction, finding eloquent expression in the present work.
Begun in 1998, the Wall of Light paintings grew out of a series of watercolors that Scully had made whilst in Mexico. Looking back on the trip after fifteen years, his large-scale canvases sought to conjure the memory of his emotive response to the ruins, whose walls seemed to contain the light of the past within them. “Seeing the Mexican ruins, the stacking of the stones, and the way the light hit those façades, had something to do with it, maybe everything to do with it,” he explained (S. Scully, quoted in Sean Scully: Wall of Light, exh. cat., Phillips Collection, Washington D. C., 2005, p. 24). In his bid to recapture the experience, Scully’s practice underwent a fundamental shift. Moving away from the long stripes that had previously characterized his oeuvre, he surrendered to loose blocks of color that interlocked in arbitrary patterns. As Danilo Eccher notes, “The result was a geometry that was less precise, less self-confident, less presumptuous, becoming instead more poetic, more mysterious, more intimate and more truthful” (D. Eccher, “Sean Scully” in Sean Scully: A Retrospective, London, 2007, p. 13).
Though Scully’s trip to Mexico marked a turning point in his career, the roots of his practice may ultimately be traced to an earlier encounter. In the 1960s, the artist had visited Morocco, where he was struck by the brightly-colored striped textiles that adorned local neighborhoods. At the time, Minimalism was in its heyday, with American artists such as Donald Judd exploring the interaction between color and form in their purest states. Though Scully initially found much in common with this outlook, he ultimately came to identify more closely with the concerns of artists such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, who espoused a more poetic, philosophical approach to abstraction. “Newman tried to make a space that was spiritually charged, and that is what I try to do in my work too,” he explained. “I basically believe the world is filled with spiritual energy and am very involved with things that attract it” (S. Scully, “On Mythology, Abstraction and Mystery” in F. Ingleby (ed.), Sean Scully: Resistance and Persistence: Selected Writings, London, 2006, p. 90). With their mythic, transcendental properties, Scully’s Wall of Light paintings stand among the most important testaments to this conviction, finding eloquent expression in the present work.