Sean Scully Closes His Windows - Interview in The New York Times

13 April 2020

In the wake of the pandemic, Sean Scully has rediscovered the color black. Will Heinrich of The New York Times interviewed the Irish-American artist and unveiled his newest work for troubled times.

For artists, the new pandemic reality means canceled exhibitions, day-job uncertainty, and fears of an industrywide contraction. Like everyone else, they’re trying to adjust. But those lucky enough to be working are also rethinking their practices, pivoting to new forms, media and colors to describe a troubled new world.

We are checking in with some of them about what’s changing in their studios, starting with the Irish-American painter Sean Scully. With work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and London’s Tate, Mr. Scully is most famous for paintings of deceptively simple geometries, especially broad stripes. (He once identified himself to a MoMA desk attendant by saying, “Sean Scully’s my name, painting stripes is my game.”) But wavering brushwork and unexpected colors infuse those stripes with more passion than you’d think they could bear. By FaceTime, we mostly talked about another longstanding series of his, paintings with rectangular cutouts that he calls “windows.”

Click here to read the interview.

Image: Elisabeth Bernstein, The New York Times

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