Gallery Chronicle: Sean Scully
Friday, January 25, 2008
By Cathleen Kenary
Over the past thirty years, Sean Scully has made a name for himself as a prominent abstract artist. Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945, and raised in England, where his family moved in 1949, Scully suffered his share of hardships as a member of a poor, working-class family. He received little artistic instruction in the state school he attended, but began to attend night classes at the Central School of Art in London in 1962. Scully received his formal artistic education at Croydon College of Art, Newcastle University, and Harvard University, where he studied the 20th-century artists that he would later cite as major influences on his technique, such as Mondrian, Matisse, Rothko, and Pollack. Scully became an American citizen in 1983; in the same year, he received a Guggenheim fellowship and an artistic fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which further boosted his profile. In 1985, Scully held his first American solo show at the Museum of Art at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In recent years, his shows have multiplied and his works have become the subject of much critical acclaim.
From January 12 until March 9, the Hood Museum will feature an exhibit of Sean Scully’s paintings, titled The Art of the Stripe. In a remarkable departure from a typical art exhibit’s layout, the presentation of The Art of the Stripe immediately captures the viewer’s attention: although the display occupies the entire upstairs gallery of the Hood, not a stick of furniture (save for a solo seat cushion) can be found in any of the rooms of the exhibit. Every wall of each room holds beautiful striped paintings, each suggesting various meanings through its color, texture, and size. The stripe, the topic of the exhibition, is of course featured prominently in the form of clean, undisturbed vistas of paint. No labels adorn the walls, which helps observers focus solely on the piece in front of them rather than descriptions that may lead one in a different direction.
The Art of the Stripe, as evident from its title, strikingly focuses on the single artistic concept of ‘the stripe,’ a seemingly simple design with a surprisingly rich history. Etymologically, the word stripe comes from Middle English stripen, a word used to describe Christ’s appearance prior to his being nailed to the cross, after enduring scourging and whipping. Thus, the word stripe originally brought to mind violence, lowness, and negativity. This connotation persisted through the medieval era, during which those who wore stripes were considered low society. At this time, even animals with stripes, such as tigers and zebras, were regarded with caution.
In the 18th century, vertical and horizontal stripes took on different meanings: the vertical stripe symbolized the wealthy; the horizontal stripe symbolized the poor. Again, these meanings manifested themselves in clothing: domestic servants usually wore horizontally striped clothing, while those of more elite society differentiated themselves with vertically striped garments. The stripe’s negative association continued to diminish after the American Revolution. Stripes became a mark of modernization and progress, permeating society in a number of different ways. They began to appear on flags, in decoration, and even more prominently on clothing. Despite the gradually developing positive connotation of the stripe, it has maintained its dual meaning. For example, stripes are still used today as a mark of imprisonment through jail bars and uniforms. Yet, the stripe is used in modern communication networks, such as train tracks, oil pipelines, and electric power lines and has become an essential method of commercial production through the barcode. The grid layout, so importance to the organization of American cities, also suggests stripes.
Scully views the stripe as a motif, patterning the various cultures of the world. During a 1969 trip to Morocco, Scully observed all varieties of stripes in people’s clothing, in the canvas of their tents, in the rugs and carpets blanketing their floors, and in the natural coloring of the Earth. His excitement over this discovery moved him to paint stripes upon returning to Europe, and these paintings form the basis of the current Hood exhibition. Through various combinations of color and textural schemes, Scully’s paintings lend the concept of the stripe significance. The ubiquity of stripes allows his work to speak to a wide audience.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is the Holly Room, which holds a total of fifteen paintings all dedicated to Scully’s recently deceased mother. Within the room, the paintings are hung symmetrically, conveying a sense of unity and rhythm. Down each side-wall are six paintings; two paintings are hung on the short return walls of the entrance way; and one larger painting is hung at the base wall of the room. In the middle of the symmetrical space sits the lone cushioned stool, the only piece of furniture within the entire exhibit. These paintings also reference the Christian Stations of the Cross. Despite ambivalence toward God in everyday life, Scully has stated that he believes in God when he is painting. The striped works that line the walls of the Holly Room convey a sense of reverence and spirituality, but not necessarily of traditional religion. Through stripes, Scully allows the observer to ponder the stations of the Holly Room from an individual’s perspective.
The exhibition culminates in the view from the Holly Room down the long corridor to the other end of the gallery, where another large, vibrant painting hangs. The contrast between this painting, Come and Go, and the large somber painting of the Holly Room leaves the observer convinced that the stripe speaks a language of its own that communicates to all. n
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