Wall 1988

Sean Scully made this painting called ‘Wall’ using oil paint, with a muted colour palette that gives off a real earthiness. The way the colours bleed into each other makes me think about the act of painting itself: the shifting, the emerging, the trial and error and the intuition involved. I can imagine Scully in his studio, maybe with some blues music on, layering those colours, letting some bits peek through, scraping others away. Those thick stripes communicate so much, right? There's a real physicality to them. It makes me think of Agnes Martin's grids but with more grit and weight. I wonder if he was looking at Rothko when he made this? Painters are in constant conversation, bouncing ideas off each other across time. Ultimately, this ‘Wall’ is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations, and that's the fun of it!