Checker 1994

Sean Scully’s ‘Checker’ uses blocks of solid colour to build an image of a checkerboard. It’s interesting how the neatness of the grid contrasts with the imperfect execution. You see, the white paint bleeds around the edges. I can imagine the artist deciding on that first colour and working outwards, responding to the balance of the painting itself, and the push and pull of trying to even out the composition. The off-register, uneven colours make the picture breathe. The brown edging adds to the sense of an image emerging, like a photograph developing in a dark room. There’s a conversation between each coloured block and the next. How do you know when it's right? It’s a feeling, an intuition. Painting is like a dance between the conscious and unconscious, it’s a collaboration between artist, image, and medium.